


i want your heart to beat for me

by The_Blonde



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Highway Family Backstory, Leggings, M/M, Mutual Pining, Smiley Face Eggs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26442283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Blonde/pseuds/The_Blonde
Summary: "Callum had never really considered how he might fall in love with someone, other than to believe it probably would never happen. He definitely didn’t think it would be while he was sat on a child’s swing, holding a sandwich and an iced bun (which he would later eat before the sandwich, covering his suit with pastry flakes), staring up at someone who he only knows as Jay’s brother who likes to make puns about types of wood. But, there it was. Love. Instant and immediate, like a thunderbolt from the sky”.Or: Callum's feelings for Ben are extremely complicated. They're about to get a lot more complicated when he agrees to be his fake boyfriend.A gift forballumschmallum! My casual stalking of your blog confirmed that you like friends to lovers, enemies to lovers and fake dating, so here is a fic with all of those things!
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell
Comments: 43
Kudos: 116
Collections: ballum lockdown





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ballumschmallum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballumschmallum/gifts).



> Title from "Power Over Me" by Dermot Kennedy.
> 
> For [ballumschmallum](https://ballumschmallum.tumblr.com/) as part of the Ballum Lockdown Gift Exchange. Hopefully this has combined a few of your favourite things (including some Doctor Who references!) I really hope you like it <3
> 
> (huge love as always to my Kay and Rachel. I could write poetry about about how wonderful and encouraging they are but will just say that they're pretty awesome and I love them both a muchness. Not a single letter of this would exist without them)

When Callum thinks about Ben (and he thinks about Ben _a lot_ , all of the time, always) he always thinks that he’s done the whole thing backwards. That he started with love, instant immediate love, like a thunderbolt from the sky, which had collapsed into yearning because that’s what unrequited feelings usually do. Especially unrequited feelings for someone like Ben. And the yearning had turned into wanting, a desperate thing that he’s never felt before or since. That had eventually broken into pieces, along with his heart, and turned into dislike. 

That’s possibly not true though. Callum can admit that, somewhere inside himself, the wanting and the yearning and the love never went away at all.

He’s just never been great at admitting his true feelings for anything.

***

Jay is the one who tells him that Ben is back on the Square, almost reluctantly, with his hands in his pockets. “I thought you’d want to know. In case you run into him”. Callum doesn’t know exactly how much Jay knows but there’s something sad in the way he touches Callum’s shoulder, like he’s apologising on Ben’s behalf.

“I mean,” Jay adds, with an extra pat to Callum’s coat. “You’re gonna run into him. This isn’t a big place and there’s literally only three places to go. I’m just saying, I didn’t want you to be surprised. And he’s not - he’s not in a great mood. You know Ben.”

“I don’t,” Callum replies. “Not really.” 

Jay grimaces. “He was asking about you. He asked about you the entire -”

“Thanks for telling me,” Callum interrupts. “I’m glad -” he stops, realising that there’s no way to end the sentence without admitting something ( _I’m glad he’s back, I’m glad I might see him, I’m glad he’s home, I’m glad that there’s the possibility of running into him in the street_ ). “I’m glad you’ve got your brother back.”

Jay seems to have heard everything Callum didn’t say, and raises his eyebrows. He’s too good a person to comment though. “He’s not exactly great company at the moment but, yeah. I’m glad too.”

Callum doesn’t exactly _look_ for Ben after that but he’s aware of hovering in the doorway of the funeral home for longer than he needs to, surveying every table of the cafe before he walks in, taking too long in the Minute Mart and glancing over his shoulder at whoever might appear behind him. He pretends he’s not doing any of it, he’s just being aware of his surroundings, that’s all. It’s important to know who’s around. 

But, really, the anticipation of Ben makes him feel like time has rewound and he’s in his early twenties again and thinks his heart might explode if Ben looks at him, like time will stop entirely if they catch a glimpse of each other. The possibility of turning a corner and seeing Ben there would make his pulse beat right into his fingertips. That was always it, the _possibility_. The things he thought could happen if, at any point, he would cross the street and curve his hand around Ben’s elbow and say - Something. Something perfect. Callum’s imagination never quite went that far and he’s not always good with words. He’s too sincere, sometimes he chokes on the overwhelming _earnestness_ of the things he wants to say. The things that he did say. The things that Ben plucked out of the air and crushed.

Jay watches him take a ridiculous amount of time to lock up, testing and retesting the door. “He hasn’t really been out much.”

Callum unlocks and relocks. “Who?”

Jay looks at him, raises his eyebrows.

“I haven’t noticed. It’s not like I’ve been keeping an eye out for him.”

“No,” Jay says. “Of course not.”

“Is he -” Callum finally stands up. “Is he okay though? With everything?”

Jay leans against the wall, Callum mirrors him and they must look like bookends in their identical suits (if Callum wasn’t almost twice Jay’s size and build). “It’s not his first time, getting out. It’s just been the longest. I think he’s just trying to adapt to that. This place isn’t exactly forgiving. And Ben is Ben. He’s not really very forgiving either.”

“I know,” Callum replies. “I know he’s not.”

***

He finally sees Ben in the club. He doesn’t even really _see_ him, he’s at the bar and then suddenly Ben’s arm is pressed to his arm, leather to plaid. Ben never announces his arrival, or does anything that a polite person with manners would do, he just sort of presents himself, like an actor on stage, grabs hold of whoever is near and pulls them into the action with him.

Ben says, “Wait,” like he already knew Callum was about to walk away. The _a_ is blurred and drawn out because Ben’s drunk, Callum can tell. There’s a wistful look in his eyes that only came with vodka. “Callum.”

Callum spills his drink all over the bar. It pools underneath his shirt cuff and probably on Ben’s jacket too. Ben doesn’t seem to notice. “Ben.”

“I’ve been looking for you.”

Callum blinks. “Why?”

Ben does not do well with direct questions about his emotions. Neither does Callum really, which makes the question slightly mean. Callum instantly feels bad for asking it, starts clearing up his drink with too many napkins. Ben watches him and manages, “I don’t know, I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

“How I was doing,” Callum repeats. “Okay.”

“You’re doing okay or you’re just _saying_ okay?”

“Both,” Callum says. “And it doesn’t matter. There’s no reason for you to be checking on how I’m doing. Jay probably tells you.”

Ben tilts his head, barely a nod. “You’re still the same.” He sounds almost pleased, as if there was no possible way Callum would have changed, as if he would have been frozen in place exactly as he’d been when Ben left (Walford East tube station, one arm outstretched over the ticket barrier, asking Ben not to leave). “I knew you would be. You always are.” 

“So are you,” Callum replies, and his tone is the exact opposite of Ben’s.

Ben winces as the words land. “I don’t know how this happened.”

Sometimes speaking to Ben is like speaking to the _real_ Ben, the one that Callum still knows is in there, beneath everything, however much he tries to hide it. Callum knows. He would sometimes want to put his hand to Ben’s heart, feel the delicate wingbeat of it under his palm, and say _there you are_. But that was before. It’s not the same. 

Callum says, “How what happened?” like he doesn’t know what Ben is talking about. 

Ben looks like he was about to say _us_ and Callum is fully ready to say _there isn’t an us, there could have been but there isn’t_ but Ben catches himself in time and says, “Everything” instead. 

“That’s a lot to not know about.”

Ben’s gaze hardens. Callum has come to recognise that shift, the narrowing of his eyes. Ben disappearing and _Ben Mitchell_ taking his place. “I mean, I’m not even that bothered. It’s just sweet when you look all angsty about me.”

“I’m not angsty about you. I don’t think about you at all.”

“Liar,” Ben says, and he’s right. 

“Did you come over _for_ something?” Callum asks. He hasn’t done a great job of cleaning up his drink, the metal surface of the bar is cold and sticky under his hands. 

Ben gives him a long look and it’s like he’s been the one frozen in time. His expression is exactly as it was when Callum last saw him (Walford East tube station, not reaching back over the ticket barriers, saying _I have to, it’s for my dad_ even though Callum had always been aware of his place on Ben’s list of priorities); he frowns and there’s a brief second where his face almost caves in on itself, but it’s gone so quickly that Callum wonders if it even happened at all. “No,” Ben says. “I just saw you and I thought -”

“Thought you’d check I haven’t moved on?”

“If that’s what you want to think.” Ben makes a gesture to the bartender, points at Callum’s still overturned glass. “But, I mean, you don’t think about me at all.”

The bartender delivers a new drink and Callum starts to shake his head but Ben interrupts, says, “I’ve got it,” and puts down two notes (too much for the one drink). He deliberately pushes his arm against Callum’s again. “It was good to see you. Even if it wasn’t good for _you_ to see me.”

Callum starts to say something and he’s not even sure what it might be, his mouth has somehow engaged before he’s aware of it, but Ben has already left.

Being presented with Ben, being around Ben, has always been like diving into cold water. It takes the air right from Callum’s lungs and leaves him trying to catch his breath. And then, in the aftermath, just trying to gather himself together.

***

By the time he was sixteen Callum had been to nine different schools and lived in eleven different flats. All of them had been left with no warning; one school on a Friday and a different one on Monday, sneaking out of tower blocks in the early hours of the morning because they were behind on rent. He knows now that being “behind” on rent actually meant that his mother had used the rent money for something else but he was an incredibly trusting kid. He hadn’t grown out of that wide-eyed naivety for an incredibly long time.

Stuart teases him about his need for things to be perfect, for everything in the flat to be in the exact same place, for dinner to be at the same time every night and only ever eaten at the table together (never in front of the tv), scented candles and a fully stocked fridge, boiled eggs with smiley faces drawn on and flowers in a vase: the gentle routine that he and Stuart would have had as kids if they’d had parents that cared about that sort of thing. It’s important to Callum that they have a _home_ , a soft place that they can return to at the end of every day. One that they aren’t going to get thrown out of at two in the morning. 

“It’s amazing that you’re like this,” Stuart says, coming back from work to chicken pasta (Callum follows recipes. Each dinner is so carefully put together that it could be the cover of a book).

Callum says, “Like what?”

“Domestic.” Stuart sits down at the kitchen table. “You know, considering everything. I don’t know where you came from.”

“Same place as you.”

“That makes it more amazing.” Stuart watches Callum add more garlic to the sauce and is quiet for far too long. Callum knows something is coming and Stuart’s trying to be delicate about it (and Stuart cannot do delicate, even with a buildup. He stomps over everything without meaning to). “I saw - earlier, I was going to the cafe and - you know what I’m like, I wasn’t fully paying attention, but I looked and -”

“You saw Ben,” Callum finishes.

“You’ve seen Ben?” Stuart sounds surprised, leans back to survey Callum’s expression. Ben normally leaves some evidence behind, a certain extra furrow to Callum’s forehead. “When?”

“About two nights ago? At the club.”

“You didn’t say.”

“There’s nothing _to_ say. We were at the bar at the same time. He spoke to me for five seconds.”

“Spoke to you about what? What life’s like in prison?”

Callum says, “ _Stu_ ,” and places a (beautifully arranged) bowl of pasta in front of him.

Stuart stares down at it for a second. “You don’t have to always go to this much effort. Not every night. It’s just me, it’s just this flat.”

“It’s not. It’s home.”

“What did you do when I wasn’t around?” 

“Enjoyed the peace and quiet,” Callum replies, though that had only been part of it. He’d eaten perfect meals alone every night, drawn smiley faces on his own boiled eggs; had thought he’d like the solitude of it after growing up in two or three roomed flats with people who seemed to take up so much more space than he did (though everyone seems to take up more space than he does), but it hadn’t been the case. “Actually, no, it was pretty lonely. I thought I’d like it, but -”

“You missed me.”

“I missed you.”

Stuart beams like no one has ever said such a kind thing to him. “I missed you too.” He spears a piece of pasta. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t notice you dodge the question. About Ben.”

“It was nothing,” Callum says. “The same as it always is.”

“You were thinking it would be different?”

“No.” Callum pushes himself away from the table and out of Stuart’s eyeline. “I knew it wouldn’t be.”

“He’s not worth the effort,” Stuart replies, decisively. “He never was.”

Stuart was never a fan of Ben. He’s devoted his life to trying to protect Callum; sometimes from things that Callum wasn’t even aware of, potential dangers that only Stuart could see brewing on the horizon. Ben was one of those things to Stuart. A gathering storm that was only ever going to pull Callum along with it. Though storms, Callum knows, have calm at their centres. He’d just never quite found Ben’s.

***

A couple of days later they have the biggest funeral they’ve ever done. There are so many floral arrangements that Callum will probably be smelling of lilies for weeks, their petals keep catching on the cuffs of his shirt and sending dust into his hair. Jay is a mix of on-edge and hyperactive, as he always is when he gets to wear the top hat and tails. He keeps starting sentences and stopping them, looking at Callum like he has something important to say but the right moment hasn’t happened yet.

“You alright?” Callum finally asks. 

“I have to tell you something,” Jay says, and then immediately leaves the room. 

He then proves to be incredibly difficult to find considering he’s the only other member of staff in the place. Eventually Callum, as he usually does, ends up sitting in the office with the grieving widow (Mrs Tyler) and listening to a love story backwards. 

Jay thinks Callum pretends to listen but he doesn’t. He remembers every single word, could recite every story months later. _People deserve to be heard_ he tells Jay and Jay tries, but his attention span just isn’t there. Callum can patiently be walked through every day of someone’s life, the end to the start, and it makes him so sad, the way they always start at the ending. But he supposes that just means that they’re working back to something happy. 

If Callum was telling a love story he’d begin at the actual beginning (across the Square), cover all the build-up (the accidental meetings, the deliberately being in places he knew he would be, the conversations, so many conversations), then it would end (with him leaving and Callum not being taken along, _I have to, it’s for my dad_ ) and whoever he was telling it to would probably say _you never got to the good bit_ and Callum would say _no. We didn’t_.

“We argued a lot,” Mrs Tyler says, which is unusual. “Most of the time actually. He _infuriated me_.”

Callum almost topples over the teacup he’s trying to balance on his knee. He keeps telling Jay they need to buy new ones, it looks tiny in his hand. “Oh. That’s -”

“Most of the time I didn’t even _like_ him.”

“I -”

“But I loved him. All the time. You think love is going to be life changing, that there’s going to be choirs everywhere you go and there’s some sort of bond connecting you and everything from that point on is going to be wonderful, but it’s not, it’s sometimes - He’d hold my hand when we walked through the market, right up until the end, and he’d say it was just in case I didn’t wander off. As if I would have gone anywhere.” She blows her nose, in a very dainty way, on one of the tissues Callum hands to her. “He had a picture of us that he was constantly moving around different rooms of the house because it was his favourite. Once when I was in hospital, I accidentally left without him and it turned out he’d -”

“I’m sorry,” Callum says. 

Mrs Tyler smiles at him in the maternal way that all older women do with Callum. It’s like they know he never really had a mother. “Why?”

“That.” He struggles for words. No one ever really asks why he’s sorry, and he’s never really thought about it himself. “That he’s gone.”

“That’s nothing for you to be sorry about. I’m just sorry that he’s going to miss all this. He loved being the centre of attention. I used to look at him across rooms and think how is that my husband, he’s so _loud_. He wasn’t at all what I thought I was looking for but sometimes - Well, now _I’m_ sorry, rambling on.” She pats at Callum’s hand.

“It’s okay, that’s what I’m here for.”

“To listen to old women complain and try to give you romance advice?” She runs the tissue under both eyes. “You probably don’t need any, I would suppose your girlfriend -”

“I don’t -”

“Boyfriend?”

“No.” Callum shakes his head. “No boyfriend.”

Mrs Tyler gives him a long look, like she’s hearing a whole speech that he’s not saying. “Potential -”

“No, really, there’s not -”

Ben, arms full of cream and white flowers, pushes the door open without knocking. The scowl on his face immediately flattens out when he sees Mrs Tyler. “I - sorry. I’m helping Jay. He said there’s too many to carry.”

There’s actually too many to take to the church. Callum has no idea where they’re all going to go. “You can put them outside,” he says. “On the main table. I’ll arrange them.”

Ben says, “Okay.” He looks like he’s blushing slightly, or it’s just the lilies catching something in his expression. “Do you need -”

“No. That’s it.”

“Right.” Ben hovers in the doorway. “I’m sorry if I interrupted. I should have knocked.”

Ben, in all the time Callum has known him, _never_ knocks. Callum has never seen him enter a room without throwing the door open and saying something obnoxious that he’d obviously rehearsed beforehand. This is also the point where Callum should say _thank you_. But he can’t bring himself to.

Mrs Tyler, looking confused by the sudden lapse in Callum’s perfect manners, turns to Ben and says, “Thank you dear.” 

“Oh. It was no problem. I’ll just put them out here.”

“Okay.”

Ben closes the door behind him very quietly, almost deliberately. 

Mrs Tyler turns back to Callum. “No _potential_?”

“No, he’s - that’s nothing, it’s just - It’s complicated. It’s too much to explain.”

Mrs Tyler, very wisely, says, “All of the best things are.”

***

Callum takes half of the lilies home. Every surface in the flat has a vase or glass filled with them. Jay, when he comes around later, says, “It smells like work”, which Callum supposes isn’t a compliment, given where they work. Jay has gotten into the habit of bringing “a few beers” around to Callum’s after a long day (and the Tyler Funeral had been _long_ , in a beautiful sort of way).

“You wanted to tell me something,” Callum reminds Jay, two beers in.

“Oh.” Jay looks uncomfortable. “Yeah. I did.”

Callum waits. Jay does too, passing his can back and forth between his hands. Callum waits for so long that he thinks Jay might have forgotten he was speaking. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing to do with me,” Jay says , defensively. “It’s Ben. All of the drama in my life just revolves around _Ben_. Right from when we were kids. But, I mean, you remember that, you know -”

“What is it?” Callum repeats. 

“I miss when the three of us were friends, you know, _together_ , ‘cause you used to calm him down. You were a good influence. He always talks his way around me but not with you, never with - That’s why this whole thing started.”

Callum feels a sudden sense of panic, a catch on some long-repressed part of his brain. Jay knows. Jay’s always known. Ben must have told him. What did Ben _say_? How did he say it? How much of the detail did he leave in? Callum both wants to know and also wants to get up and walk out of his own flat. But, he’s never known what Ben really thought of the whole thing. Ben both wears his emotions on his sleeve and fully represses them. It’s frustrating, trying to get someone like that to reveal themselves to you, trying to always work out what they’re thinking. What did he _say_?

Callum’s voice wavers up and down, like he’s trying to find perfect pitch. “It was never really a thing. I wanted it to - I don’t know how much he said, but I -”

Jay looks incredulous. “You _knew_? He said that you didn’t.”

“I probably should have waited, I -” Callum stops. “What?”

“He said you didn’t know. He’s been panicking about telling you. Or, Ben doesn’t really _panic_ , he’s just been sorta moody about it, but he said he needed to tell you and he still hasn’t so I’m just being the grown-up. As usual.” Jay leans back on the sofa and studies Callum’s face. “Oh. You were talking about something else.”

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“What actually _happened_ with you two?”

“Nothing,” Callum replies, which is almost the truth. Something had happened; it just wasn’t the thing that Callum wanted. “We’re just different. We sorta drifted.” 

Or Ben had drifted. Callum hadn’t moved at all; he’d stayed marooned in Albert Square on an island for one while Ben orbited around him, continually being dragged off course and towards places that Callum couldn’t go (wouldn’t go, wasn’t invited to go). Eventually Ben had just drifted too far away and there had never been any sign of him coming back. Until he had. 

Jay hums in a way that indicates that he didn’t believe a syllable of what Callum had just said but is too polite to say anything further. “He’s gonna ask you something. And I want you to know that I didn’t know anything about it until today otherwise I would have told him it was a stupid idea, but he’s gonna ask you. And hear him out. I know he’s hard work and everything but - he just feels a lot. He doesn’t know what to do with everything that’s in his head.”

“I can’t think of anything that he’d want to ask me.” Though there are a lot of things that Callum would want to ask Ben. 

“You’re probably not going to think of this,” Jay says. “Just listen to him. That’s all.”

“I always listened to him.”

“Yeah.” Jay looks sad. “You did.”

***

Callum is outside the cafe, picking at a bacon sandwich, when Ben appears (as if from thin air) and sits in the seat opposite. He bangs both the chair and the table, always having to make an entrance, and steals a chip from Callum’s plate. “Too much salt.”

“What do you want?”

“I feel like you already know. Jay sort of spoiled the surprise.” Ben takes another chip. “I had a whole speech planned to, you would have -”

“He just said that you wanted to ask me something.”

Ben goes very still. He does that, Callum remembers, the abrupt halt of his constant movements, the way his gaze would suddenly focus, like he found whoever or whatever he was looking at incredibly interesting. Callum has never been good at being on the receiving end of it. He ducks his head. Ben says, “I do.”

“Then ask it.”

“My mum’s coming back. Just for a few days, to visit. And to make sure Ian hasn’t got himself into anymore bother.”

“Not concerned about you being in any bother then?”

“I’m never in bother. And she -” Ben clears his throat and twists his mouth a little, like a grimace. “She doesn’t really worry about me that much. Not recently.”

Callum says, “ _Seriously_?” because he knows Ben’s mum. Very well. Before she left for South Africa she would frequently come up to him in the street, fit her palm to his cheek and say any variation of: _don’t give up on him, you’re the best thing that’s happened to my stupid son, you’re good for him, he needs someone like you, don’t walk away_. Kathy had been more perceptive than most people, in terms of what Callum felt about Ben. She hadn’t been hugely perceptive about who had done the walking away though. For most people it’s probably easier to assume it would have been Callum, when it’s not true. Callum would have followed Ben anywhere he wanted to go. “Your mum worries about you all the time.”

“No, she - she’s happy now. About me. She’s just always wanted me to be settled and with someone stable, so she’s -”

“You’re with someone?” Callum looks down at his sandwich. The bread suddenly seems stale, the bacon overcooked. It feels too dry for his mouth. “Do - Do I know them?” The only two places Ben could really have met someone are the Square or prison. Callum isn’t thrilled by either of those options. He says, “What are they like?” before he can help himself. 

Ben looks very fond. The way he used to when he thought Callum wasn’t looking. Except Callum’s looking now. “He’s from here. Or not _from_ here, he moved here a couple of years ago. Messed up family, like mine. He was by himself and, I don’t know, I’ve always complained about my family but I can’t imagine _not_ having one and something about him made me sad, so this one day he was just sitting in the park, alone, he was always alone, and I went over and -”

“That’s how we met,” Callum interrupts. “You’re telling me how _we_ met.”

“Yeah,” Ben says. “I am.”

“We’re not - You’re not _with_ me. We never -”

“No.” Ben pushes himself back on his chair, half-balances it on two legs. “We never.”

“So you didn’t want to ask me anything, you just wanted to wind me up?”

“My mum worries,” Ben says. “And I didn’t want her to. Everything that happened was on me, it was my decision, my choices, however bad they were, but she’s out over there and I knew she’d just be thinking about me being inside and who was visiting me or writing to me and that I’d be on my own, and I wanted to make her feel a bit better about it. And she _likes_ you, she always liked you, she thought you were a good influence on me, you know, before. When we were - when we were friends. And I knew she’d feel better if she thought you were around, and -”

“I _was_ around. I haven’t gone anywhere.”

“You bring out the best in me,” Ben finishes, apparently having forgotten that he’s meant to be saying what Kathy thinks, and not what might be hidden deep inside his own head.

“I don’t think I did.”

“I wish -”

“I have to get back to work,” Callum says. “If you want to actually ask me whatever it is that -”

“I told her we were together.”

Callum blinks. The words make sense individually but somehow not as a combination. They waver in the air like a maths equation that he has no hope of solving. “You told her -”

“That we’re together. That we’ve been together for a while. It was just so that she wouldn’t _worry_ , I just -”

“Together _how_?”

Ben says, “Callum,” in a slightly hopeless way. 

“Oh. You mean together.”

“It made her feel better, to think that you were there, and -”

“I was,” Callum repeats. “I _was_.”

“And that’s what I wanted to ask.” Ben is flushed, the slightly frantic way he gets when he’s stressed or angry or worried or just feeling everything a bit too much. He puts his head in his hands, then lifts it, then puts his hands flat on the table, curls his fingers against the metal. “That when she comes back, it’s just for a few days, but if you could just come and stay over and have dinner with us and stuff, and just _pretend_ , I -”

“Pretend?”

“Pretend that we’re together. Pretend that you like me.”

“Pretend,” Callum states, flatly. 

“For a few days. For my mum. Please.”

Callum’s heart is beating into his ears, into his throat, into his hands. He can’t do it. It wouldn’t be pretending, that’s the thing, Ben must know it wouldn’t be. Unless he thinks Callum has moved on, or that he doesn’t feel like he had two years ago, but Callum has given no sign of moving on and Ben, more than anyone, should realise how much it takes for Callum to admit anything to anyone. You don’t tell someone you love them, get (politely) turned down, and then immediately forget about it. You can’t turn those feelings off. Callum had tried. 

“I said that you wrote to me,” Ben says. “Every week. And that -”

“Stop.” Callum smacks his coffee cup into his plate, so loudly that there must be a crack in the china. “Why are there details? You didn’t have to add in extra details.”

“It has to be _believable_.”

“How long are we meant to have been -” Callum waves his hand. He somehow can’t say _together_.

“Just over two years,” Ben replies and he looks apologetic. 

“Oh,” Callum says. “ _Oh_. We’re going from there. From that.”

“It’s meant to be believable. I thought that was easiest.”

“Is that the story then? The getting together story? You rescue me from my own loneliness when I move to a new place and then you’re my first real friend and I have to keep you out of trouble all the time but I do it because I care about you. But then it turns out it’s not because I care about you at all, it’s because I - you know. And then when I _tell_ you, you say you feel the same way and then we’re together? And we’ve been together ever since?”

Ben winces, like he’s taken a direct hit to his heart. “Yes.”

“That’s the complete opposite of what happened.”

“I know. I _know_. But, please, it’s only a few days. Then she’ll go back and in a few months I can tell her we broke up. I just don’t want her to leave thinking that I’m not coping or something, she was so happy when I said about us.”

“Why did you even say it was me? You could have made someone up.”

“She likes you,” Ben says simply. “Everyone does.”

“Can I think about it?”

“She gets here in two days, you’ll have to -”

“I need to think about it.”

“Yeah. Of course.” Ben steals a final chip and stands up. “You know where to find me.”

Callum does. Though it still feels like a low blow to be reminded of it, of how he used to visit each of Ben’s usual hang-outs (the Vic, the club, the Arches, the park, that really quiet bench behind the lake) until he eventually located Ben in one. Of how obvious he used to be. He cringes when he thinks about it. Sometimes.

Ben puts his hand on Callum’s shoulder and then freezes, leaves his hand as a solid weight that Callum has to lean into. “I’m sorry. I just said it without thinking and then it got away from me. You know what I’m like. I never think before doing something.”

“I do,” Callum says, though whether he means _I know what you’re like_ or _I always think before doing something_ isn’t clear. They’re both equally true anyway.

***

There are still lilies everywhere. Jay emerges from a haze of them to say, “He asked you then?”, and Callum isn’t sure how he knows until he catches himself in the mirror. He’s blushing so deeply that it looks like someone has smudged pink crayon across his cheekbones. He pinches the top of his nose between two fingers and says, “Yes.”

“What did you say?”

“That I’ll think about it. It’s a lot to think about. And I’m a really bad liar.”

“Are you?” Jay replies, lightly. “Because it seems like you lie every time I ask what happened between you two.”

“I said nothing happened. That’s not a lie.”

Callum goes into the office and closes the door. He wants to slam it shut, make some kind of noise to match whatever is going on in his head, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He doesn’t make noise, he stays in the background, always in the supportive cast (the best friend who falls in terrible unrequited love with the lead character and is left to pine forever), he doesn’t make a _fuss_. He presses his forehead against the closed door instead, listens to the sound of Jay moving around inside the parlour, his footsteps combined with hundreds of lily petals brushing against each other. 

Callum is always eager to please. Too eager to please. He knows this about himself; it’s all tangled up in the wide-eyed sincerity that makes him so good at speaking to grieving families and widows. He just wants everyone to be happy, for life to be easy, even though his life hasn’t really been filled with either of those things (happy people or easiness). He supposes that’s why he eventually walked away from his mother, why he took the job in the funeral parlour and came to the Square in the first place. He’d wanted to be happy and secure, in a place that had only ever been his. Easy. But then he’d fallen in love with Ben and nothing had been that easy at all. 

_Nothing happened_ is not a lie but it’s still not really the truth.

The truth is this:

Callum had moved to the Square a couple of years ago. Messed up family, like Ben’s. Like everyone on the Square’s actually, he wasn’t unique. His brother was in prison, his father was who knows where and he’d finally just left his mother to it. He was by himself, which had made him unique in the Square, where everyone seemed to live in impossibly large houses with their entire extended families. His aloneness seemed to make people want to approach him, even though he could never remember anyone’s name or how they were related to each other. 

Jay had said, of Ben, before Callum had met him, _he’s my brother. Well, not really. But he is. It’s a long story_ and that really summed up how people in the Square described their families. It’s a long story. Callum didn’t have enough of a family to make a story at all. 

He didn’t meet Ben properly for a while. He was _aware_ of him because he liked to burst into the funeral home and make jokes about wood and stiffs and other uses for coffins until Jay told him to leave. Callum rarely looked up. People who are loud in the way Ben is sometimes intimidate him and there’s always been an edge to Ben, like he’s a second away from doing or saying something unexpected. He would pass Callum pens and hold on for too long, would say _we ain’t been properly introduced_ in an obviously flirty way while Jay yelled _leave him alone_ , would ask Jay _does he speak?_ while Callum would quietly do paperwork and not look at him.

Maybe that’s why the first time he looked at Ben it meant too much. He’d created too big of a build-up. He was on his lunch break, sat on a park swing by himself, when two brown paper bags (one with a sandwich, one with a Chelsea bun) landed in his lap. He glanced at the sky first (like they’d fallen from the air) so when he’d looked at Ben he was still trying to blink the sunlight out of his eyes. 

“Lunch,” Ben said. “You never have any and my mum runs the cafe. You can eat the cake first, I’m not gonna judge you.” He must have misunderstood Callum’s dazzled expression for confusion because he added, “I’m Ben? Jay’s brother? I’m in the parlour sometimes, if I -”

“I know. Thanks.” Callum held up both bags. “You really didn’t have to.”

“I told you, it’s free. I told my mum it was for the sad guy Jay works with. She already knew who you were.”

“I’m not sad.”

“Then you’re really good at pretending you are.” Ben tilted his head to one side. “Do you really not have any family here? People don’t really move here unless it’s with someone or to stay with someone.”

“I’d noticed,” Callum replied, drily. “And no, I really don’t. I don’t have much family at all.”

“Take some of mine. I’ve got too much.”

Callum, having grown up with an absent father, an absent brother and a present-but-still-absent-mother, said, “I don’t think it’s possible to have _too much_ family. I barely have any.”

“We’ll just have to adopt you then.” Ben smiled, jokingly, like he hadn’t just said the kindest thing anyone had ever said to Callum. Even if it hadn’t been meant seriously it still pulled at the small abandoned place in Callum’s heart where all of the Highways reside. That long repressed feeling which meant _home_. 

Ben reached out and touched Callum’s shoulder, and not even really his shoulder, it was the part of his funeral suit where the material was so thick that Ben probably couldn’t have felt Callum underneath but Callum _felt_ it, like a brand, like Ben had left a huge handprint behind. 

“Maybe you can look at me the next time I’m in the parlour now,” Ben said, gently. “It’s hard when I put in so much effort into my jokes for no reaction.”

“I’ll react.”

“Good.” Ben pointed at the bags. “In that case, I’ll keep bringing you lunch.”

Callum had never really considered how he might fall in love with someone, other than to believe it probably would never happen. He definitely didn’t think it would be while he was sat on a child’s swing, holding a sandwich and a bun (which he would later eat before the sandwich, covering his suit with pastry flakes), staring up at someone who he only knows as Jay’s brother who likes to make puns about types of wood but there it was. Love. Instant and immediate, like a thunderbolt from the sky.

***

Callum had reacted a lot after that. Ben would lean over his chair, almost tucked into Callum’s side, and say things like _walnut, a four on the hardness scale. There’s a hardness scale? What type of business is this_ and _elm, long and straight. Well, I’m not interested then_. He seemed to rejoice in every expression he could pull from Callum, the tiniest hint of pink on Callum’s face was a personal accomplishment.

Once he sat on the edge of Callum’s desk and said _English one and half inches, wow_ just after a terrible comment about what they should put in their brochures (something about sex and death probably) and Callum had laughed. Genuinely, the one that shows his dimple. Ben made a joyful noise and reached out like he couldn’t help it, pushed his thumb against the dip in Callum’s cheek. “Of course you have _dimples_. I knew it.” Every single part of Callum seemed to cause delight and some sort of fascination. Callum found it confusing. He’s not a very fascinating person.

Ben brought him lunch every day. Always a cake and a sandwich. Callum would eat the cake first and save the sandwich for later in the afternoon. Ben always remembered which ones were Callum’s favourite but would save those for Fridays. Or days when he somehow knew that Callum was particularly sad. Callum knew this because Ben would hand the bag over and say _because you look grumpy_ and Callum would pull the sponge of whatever cake it was apart in his hands because no one had ever really commented on his moods before.

Jay said, “He doesn’t like many people. But, I dunno, he’s making a proper effort with you.”

Callum shook his head. “He feels sorry for me.”

“Nah, that’s not it. It’s different.”

Jay never entirely elaborated on what he exactly thought was different, though he would raise his eyebrows on the nights when they went to the pub or the club and Ben would fuss to make sure Callum was sat in the middle of them (with Ben always a barrier between Callum and whatever crowds of people were around). The protective way Ben would go to the bar whenever Callum did, like Callum couldn’t carry three drinks on his own.

All of these things (the lunches, the innuendos, the tilting himself towards Callum, the quietest tables at pubs when Callum knew Ben would prefer the busier ones, the drag of Ben’s hand along his arm if he needed Callum to move out of the way but also to stay where he was) were tiny details that Callum folded into neat little squares and filed away. 

He didn’t really overthink it. Being in love with Ben was like watching a firework display. It was bright and overwhelming when you were there, in the moment, gazing up at it, maybe being startled by just how much it made you feel, but then the afterwards, when you were by yourself, seemed much quieter and lacking in colour. Ben was preformative, loved to get a reaction from people (good or bad) and Callum was never sure if how he was with him was just that - putting on a show. 

Kathy, after maybe the fifth time of meeting Callum, had touched his hand and said, “You’re good for him.” 

Callum blinked. “For who?”

“ _Ben_.” Callum must have still looked confused because she added, “My son? The one who steals stock from my cafe so you can have lunch every day?”

“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t know he was _stealing_ , I’ll pay it back. Just tell me how much it -”

“Stop.” Kathy laughed. “It’s fine. It’s a perk of having a mother who owns a cafe. And it’s sweet, I never see him make this much effort.”

“People keep saying that.”

Ben owned a truly overwhelming amount of coats, in various colours and materials. He used to wear what seemed like a different one every day until Callum, completely off-hand, mentioned that the grey plaid was his favourite. After that all the other coats disappeared. Sometimes, if Ben was slightly tipsy on the way back from the Vic, he would sway and pirouette because _I could have been a dancer, I wanted to be_ , and Callum would watch the coat spin around and think _I love you. You can be whatever you want. You should have been_.

His flat felt empty without Ben in it, even though Ben had never been there. 

Callum is a quiet person; he’s not used to having people’s full attention and he was even less used to keeping someone’s focus. And, because of that, he never called Ben on it. Never said _hey, what’s going on here_ even though sometimes he was on the verge of passing a note that said _do you like me, tick yes or no_. He’d sort of thought that making it clear that he’d noticed would make Ben stop. And Callum didn’t want him to. 

Everytime Callum smiled with dimples Ben would smile right back and say _there it is!_. He would push into Callum’s space even though there was plenty of space everywhere else. If Callum dropped some detail about his family Ben would curl his fingers into fists, like he wanted to go back in time and pull tiny Callum into the overcrowded Beale house (not the Mitchell one) so Kathy could feed him all the sandwiches he wanted. It was also the clenched fists of someone who knew what it was like, to have that type of father.

“His dad’s a nightmare,” Jay said. “A _nightmare_.”

Callum’s father is a nightmare that he’s almost forgotten. He sometimes remembers his voice, his palm clipped behind Callum’s ear, but not much. Ben’s father seemed to be an ever-present force, more like sleep paralysis. Callum came to recognise the expression on Ben’s face when he received a text from him, the smudged bruises on his jaw and under his eyes when he’d come back from visiting him.

Callum, with some difficulty, managed a, “Did he do that?”

Ben, confused, frowned so that his bruises blended purple to yellow. “My dad? No, there’s a whole queue of people wanting to do this.” Which didn’t make Callum feel better. 

“It’s best not to ask about his dad,” Jay advised, later. “He wouldn’t want you to know anything.”

But Callum wanted to know everything about Ben. Everything Ben said, everything he wore, every mannerism he showed, was something Callum had a stream of questions about. _I love you_ he wanted to say. _Tell me why you picked that shirt, why you do that weird thing with your mouth when you’ve said something you think is too honest, why you complain about your mum fussing but I know you would be annoyed if she didn’t, what you’re thinking about when you’re not saying anything, which actually isn’t very often. Tell me about your dad_.

Stuart came back from prison, found Callum by the note he’d left for their mother (which was apparently still on the fridge, exactly where it had been left), and said a lot about wanting to be a good brother this time, the brother Callum deserves (and he has been, Callum will give him full credit for that). He also immediately said that Ben was _bad news_. 

Ben said, “I think I’m pretty good news actually,” and then, more seriously, “He’s probably right. He is right.”

“He’s not. I know you.”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say. Ben’s face became incredibly sad and then almost annoyed. He focused his gaze on an area of wall just over Callum’s head and said, “No, you don’t.”

After that Ben started only staying in the pub for fifteen, sometimes twenty minutes, before he would meet someone from his library of apps and then he’d be gone. 

And the love turned into something else because all the potential, the hope, had gone. Callum thought he’d missed a step somewhere, gone ahead of Ben, said something too sincere and made his feelings obvious so the show had ended, exactly as he knew it would. 

The lunches continued but they were left on Callum’s desk, not handed to him. He would say _thank you_ to Ben, on the fleeting moments they saw each other, and Ben would squeeze his eyes shut like the sound of Callum’s voice hurt him a little. 

He still brought Callum’s favourites on a Friday and days when he looked sad. He never stopped doing that, right up until the end.

***

Callum knows he’s going to agree, even after only two minutes of standing with his forehead against the door of his office. He’d been ready to agree from the moment Ben said _I said you wrote to me, every week_ because that’s exactly what Callum would have done, written every week, every day, been there for every single visiting hour. Ben must have known it otherwise he wouldn’t have said it. Adding in believable details.

Callum likes Kathy, and he certainly doesn’t want her to worry or to stress about Ben while she’s oceans away, but he can’t pretend that’s the only reason he’s saying yes. She’s not even in the top ten reasons. 

He locates Ben on a picnic table in the park, the one nearest the pond. He’s wearing a denim jacket that’s too light for the cold and Callum wants to take off his work coat and put it around his shoulders. 

Ben smiles, like they’re friends who have arranged to meet, and Callum smiles back, like that’s true. 

“Oh” Ben says, looking at Callum’s cheek. “There it is. I’d forgotten.”

Callum touches his hand to his dimple like he could rub it away. 

Ben’s smile disappears. “You’ve thought about it?”

“Yeah. I’ll do it.”

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”

“How do you want me to sound?”

Ben laughs, a bitter sounding thing that doesn’t really sound like a laugh at all. “It’s probably best I don’t answer that.”

“It’s for your mum. You’re right, I don’t want her to worry.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“What about Ian though? And everyone? He knows we haven’t -”

“I told him we were keeping it a secret.”

“For two years?”

“I told him you were the best thing that had ever happened to me and that if I told anyone about you then it’d just get ruined so I wanted to keep you for myself. And he, uh - he understood. So did Bobby and Peter.”

It’s Callum’s turn to laugh now, just as bitterly and slightly sadder. “Details.”

“Details are important.”

“Of course.”

“Callum if it’s gonna be too hard, or if you -”

“Why would it be hard?” Callum replies, and then immediately realises that they’ve both somehow taken the conversation to the place that they never acknowledge. The scene Callum pretends didn’t happen. He wishes sometimes that his life was a tv show and he could just edit it out (he could say it was poor writing. Added nothing to the plot development). “No, don’t answer that.”

Ben presses his lips into a thin line and doesn’t. “She gets here in two days. So, uh, you should be at the house. With me. She’s only here for four days then Ian’s taking her to the coast for - it’s not for very long. And then I’ll leave it a few weeks and I’ll say we broke up. I’ll say, I’ll just explain - I’ll say the truth. And then -”

Callum, surprised, says, “The truth?”

“That you were too good for me.” 

Callum feels his heart contract, misses several breaths before the compartment where he stores all his feelings about Ben explodes. He has to brace his hands against the table. “That’s not the truth. It never was.”

“I forgot how nice you were,” Ben says. “Which only proves my point.” He stands, kicks one leg over the bench seat. “Thank you for doing this. I mean it. I know it wasn’t - I shouldn’t have said it.”

“It was for your mum.”

“Yeah.” Ben makes another bitter noise. “Just for her.” He frees his other leg and takes a step away. “I’ll text you. And just explain some of the extra - The things I’ve said.”

Callum waits until Ben has turned his back, is on the path on the way to the Square, before he says, “I would have written to you.”

Ben spins back, like he used to do on their tipsy walks from the Vic, coat flying, _I wanted to be a dancer_. “What?”

“What you said at the cafe. I would have written to you, when you were inside. I would have written to you every day.”

Ben says, “I know you would have” and grimaces as though the sight of Callum is causing him pain. “I know. That’s why I said it.”

As he walks away Callum thinks _details_ again. _Believable details_.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day Callum returns from a meeting with their florist to find two brown paper bags on his desk. A chicken sandwich and a Chelsea bun. He looks for a note even though he knew Ben would never leave one. He’s eating the bun, piece by delicate piece, when Jay leans his head around the door. 

“You agreed to it,” Jay says. He sounds surprised. 

“It’s for Kathy.” Callum pulls another piece from the bun. “So she’s not worried. She can go back to South Africa knowing he’s okay.” He looks at Jay. “You thought I’d say no.”

“I did. I told him you would. I just didn’t think you’d put yourself through that.”

“Spending a few days with Ian isn’t that bad.”

Jay says, “I was talking about the fact that you’re in love with him.” 

Callum tears the remaining part of the bun in half and hesitates, enough time for Jay to raise an eyebrow, enough time to make it obvious, before he replies, “No, I’m not.”

“We can talk about it.”

“Nothing to talk about.” Though he _wants_ to talk about it. It’s a thing that he’s been carrying for too long. “We were friends but it was - He’s been in prison for two years, we haven’t even spoken properly for ages, and I like Kathy, I just want her to feel okay about him because she’s far away and sometimes you feel far away from Ben when you’re _with_ Ben, so if I can help her feel better about -”

“You ain’t gotta justify it to me,” Jay says, softly. 

It’s the softness of his voice that makes Callum look up from kneading pastry between his hands and say, “It was obvious.” 

“To me it was. Not to Ben. He struggles with that.”

“With emotions?”

“With people liking him.” Jay half-smiles, quirks one corner of his mouth. “I meant what I said, if you want to talk.”

Callum says, “Thanks Jay,” and doesn’t point out that it had been made very obvious to Ben, in the end. And probably before that. He doesn’t know how to be anything other than sincere. Ben had probably known for months before Callum actually came out and said it (and what a stupid idea that had been).

***

The first Beale he sees, as he’s walking back to the flat to tell Stuart (a conversation he is not looking forward to), is Peter. Peter is never around the Square much, he has a general air that he’s too good for the place and spends most of his time up West or further into the city, so he and Callum never really interacted. Ben had pointed him out as his nephew once and Callum had said _nephew? He’s a foot taller than you_. Ben couldn’t even argue because it was true.

The Beales sometimes confused Callum. There were a lot of them and he could never remember the names of all of Ian’s past wives. _He married the same one twice_ Ben supplied, helpfully. _Not the one that had him shot. That’s Peter’s mum_. And Ben had a nephew who was older than him and a mother who looked younger than his brother. Callum should have taken notes.

Peter jogs across the street, flicks his too long fringe from his eyes, and says, “Callum.”

Callum feels vaguely like he’s back in school and one of the popular kids, maybe one of the football team, has decided to speak to him. “Peter?”

“You’re coming to stay with us for a few days.” Peter looks as though he’s expecting Callum to deny it. “I had no idea about you and Ben. You kept that quiet.”

Ben had texted a few disjointed messages about what he’d told his family. Callum sticks to the agreed line and says, “Yeah, we thought it was best. You know, with everything else that was happening.”

“He must like you. I’ve never known Ben to keep quiet about anything. And Dad says he hasn’t had to make breakfast for any random lads for a -”

“Thanks,” Callum interrupts. 

Peter flushes. “It just seems serious. And I’m glad. Dad wants that for Ben. So does Gran.”

Callum doesn’t know what to say to that so he repeats, “Thanks.”

“And it’ll be nice to have someone normal around the dinner table.” Peter leans forward and taps his knuckles to Callum’s chest. One of those blokey sort of things that Callum never quite got. Is he meant to do it back? “See you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Callum says. “See you”. 

Peter aims another tiny punch to Callum’s shoulder, then turns and jogs away. 

Callum exhales so deeply that he’s sure Peter, by now on the other side of the street, must have heard him. That was the first one done, the first lie. He’s assuming he’d been convincing, Peter hadn’t seemed to have noticed anything different (but then he’s so rarely spoken to Peter anyway. Kathy and Ian are the ones who will be the true tests of his ability). He wonders if he should tell Ben, but he hasn’t really heard from Ben beyond the texts, and he’d felt sort of saddened by that, like they would have started pretending already. Without an audience. 

Ben’s texts had arrived in no particular order and apparently just as soon as the thought had popped into his brain: _We were keeping it quiet because of me going inside. Say we thought it was too much to spring on everyone. You wrote to me every week. You came to visit, just make sure you say that was on Wednesdays. Ian always came on Fridays, Wednesdays are when he does stock. Don’t comment on my dad, even if mum brings him up, even if anyone brings him up. Say you didn’t tell Stuart either._

They’re all very factual, all things that Callum should make sure to say. There’s nothing about how he’s supposed to act, how he’s supposed to be around Ben. His thumbs have hovered over his phone screen most of the day, he’s typed and deleted _how do you want me to be around you? Am I meant to_ what feels like a hundred times. He can’t even bring himself to finish the sentence. _Am I meant to………_. What. ( _Am I meant to touch you? How affectionate should I be? How much do you want me to be? Should we kiss? Are we going to?_ )

***

Stuart laughs and says, “No.”

Callum, packing an overnight bag, says, “Yes.”

Stuart stops laughing. “How is this a good idea?”

“It’s for Kathy. You like Kathy. She always used to put extra froth on your coffee, remember?”

“Yeah, I like her. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna pretend to be her son’s boyfriend.” Stuart suddenly points at Callum accusingly. “And also, don’t pretend. It’s not just about her. I know you. And I know how you feel about Ben, and I don’t want this being -”

“You knew?” Callum exclaims. The raising of his voice is so rare that Stuart immediately stops talking. “Did everyone know? Did _everyone_ know and just leave me to get on with it by myself? ”

“I thought,” Stuart says. “I just thought. I guessed. I didn’t know. You were just always around him and always _talking_ about him and - I didn’t mean to upset you, okay? I just want you to be _happy_ and I really think this is a bad idea. He doesn’t know how you feel.”

Callum flings two shirts into the bag without even looking at them. “He knows.”

“What?”

“I told him. Right before he got arrested. I -” Callum has never admitted this to another person, has never actually outlined what he said, what Ben said back. “I told him and I asked him to stay, to not go and do the job for his dad. And, I mean, he obviously didn’t.”

“But what did he say back?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you said - what did _you_ say?”

Callum says, “I don’t remember the exact words,” when he remembers every single one. “Just that - that I loved him.” The past tense makes it easier even though it isn’t exactly true. 

Stuart looks like something has fallen from the sky and landed directly on his head. He blinks, mouth half-open. “You _loved_ him?”

“That’s what you just -”

“I thought you just liked him. In a really strong way.”

Callum repeats, “In a strong way.”

He’d loved Ben in a strong way. In a way that he had wanted to protect Ben from the world, to find Phil Mitchell, wherever he was hiding, and tell him to leave his son alone. To tell Ben that it would be okay, just the two of them, it was okay to want a quiet life like this, he wasn’t going anywhere, and that it was possible to be _happy_. He’d truly thought that he could make Ben happy, if Ben had wanted to be made so (or if Ben thought he _deserved_ to be so).

“No one said anything about love,” Stuart says. “I didn’t know that’s what was happening.” He reaches for Callum’s bag and tries to pull it towards him. “You can’t do it. It’s a terrible idea.”

“It’s for Kathy,” Callum says, again. How many times has he said this over the past day. “It’s only for a few -”

“What’s my story then?” Stuart lets go of the bag, suddenly resigned to the whole thing. “What are my lines? How am I meant to act?”

“You didn’t know,” Callum says. “You didn’t know and you don’t approve.”

Stuart laughs. “Then there’s no acting involved, is there? For either of us.”

Callum doesn’t even try to deny it.

***

The second Beale he sees, holding open the door of the house, is Bobby. Bobby is also probably Callum’s favourite Beale (that is, if he kept a ranking of them, which seems a rude thing to do with your fake boyfriend’s family). Bobby holds his arms up like he’s about to hug Callum and then seems to think better of it, drops one arm and shakes his hand instead.

Callum is disappointed. He could actually use a hug right now. Instead he lets Bobby enthusiastically bounce their clasped hands up and down and says, “Alright Bob?”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Bobby replies, completely sincerely. 

“Oh.” Callum puts his free hand over both of theirs. “Thanks.”

“Peter and Dad have gone to get Gran from the airport but Ben’s upstairs. I wish you’d said. I know you wanted to keep it secret but I honestly wouldn’t have told anyone.”

“I know you wouldn’t have.” 

Bobby gives a weak smile (all of Bobby’s smiles are weak, they flicker over his face and disappear too quickly) and takes his bag. He then leads Callum into the kitchen, then the living room, then the too narrow stairs and then to Ben’s bedroom. 

“He knows the way Bob,” Ben says. “He didn’t need a guide.”

“He’s a _guest_.” Bobby puts Callum’s bag down. “It’s polite.” He hesitates, as if taking in the awkwardness of Callum in the doorway and Ben stood beside his bed, neither of them making any effort to move. Bobby looks between them, left to right and back. “So, Callum’s here.” 

Ben says, “Yep,” and then gives Callum a slightly stricken look, a look that says _what are we supposed to do now_. “Hi.”

Bobby says, “You don’t have to keep it a secret anymore,” which is exactly the type of kind thing Callum expected him to say.

Ben takes the lifeline that’s offered and immediately replies, “Yeah, it’s just weird. Being back and -” He unfolds his arms and opens them out, too slowly, like something unfurling. Callum blinks and watches him before he realises that he’s probably supposed to walk forward, right into Ben’s hands. 

He does so slowly, scuffs his feet along the carpet before he reaches Ben. They make eye contact briefly, Ben quirks one eyebrow (apologetically or teasingly, Callum isn’t sure), and then Callum has to fold himself down as Ben folds himself up, presses his forehead against Ben’s shoulder, feels Ben’s hands close on his back, and then they’re hugging. He exhales right into Ben’s ear and Ben pats his palm once between Callum’s shoulders.

“Aw,” says Bobby, as if that’s exactly what he wanted. “There we go.”

He closes the door behind him and they both hear his quiet footsteps retreat back downstairs.

Ben’s _sorry_ is muffled against Callum’s collarbone. He must be right up on his tiptoes. They’ve never hugged before. Callum hasn’t considered the logistics of it, how much he’d have to lean down, but he feels like he’s protecting Ben, fully shielding him from the world. He says, “It’s okay,” forgetting just how close to Ben’s ear his mouth is. “Sorry.” He tilts his head away. “It’s okay.”

“We don’t have to keep hugging,” Ben mumbles.

Callum says, “No, okay. Of course,” and disentangles himself (having not realised how tangled they’d actually _got_ ). “I meant.” He steps back from Ben. Ben looks slightly dazed. “Sorry. I meant to ask about stuff like this. How much you want to do, or how far you want to take it, I don’t know what the plan was with that, I -” He takes in the room, the too big bed squashed against the wall, the wardrobe that takes up all the other available space, his bag on the only empty piece of floor. “Is there only one bed?”

“I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“ _What_ floor? There’s no space.”

“It’s fine,” Ben says. “I’m not that tall.” He rubs his thumb over one eyebrow and frowns. “What were you saying about how we’re supposed to act?”

“Just how much we’re meant to - how believable it has to be.”

“I should have said, about that. I was too focused on -”

“Because if you’ve been in prison for two years -”

“I have,” Ben says. “Been in prison for two years.”

“And this is the first time we’ve been together properly with you being out -”

“Do what you’re comfortable with,” Ben interrupts. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to be a certain way or that you have to - just be what you’d be like for real. I’ll go with that.”

Callum isn’t sure if Ben is entirely ready for what he’d be like for real, if this really was a parallel universe where Ben had said _yes, I love you too, but I still have to help my dad_ , which seems to be the story they’re going with. If that had been true, and he and Ben were now reunited, after prison, after weekly letters, weekly visits, would they really be in the Beale house? No, Callum would have taken Ben away. He’d have plane tickets booked, somewhere sunny, somewhere secluded, and he would only tell Jay and Stuart where they were going. He wouldn’t let Ben out of his sight, he would be touching him _all the time_ (his hand to Ben’s head, neck, hair, the small of his back, his jaw). Ben would say _I only stopped speaking to you because I was scared about how I felt_ , which Callum had always hoped was the case. He’d say _you’re here_ and _you’re back_ and all sorts of over-awed things and make sure Ben knew, every second of every day, that he loved him. And in the alternate universe it would be okay because Ben would love him back. 

They’re not in an alternate universe though, they’re here, in one of the many bedrooms in the labyrinth of the Beale house. Ben says, “I’ll go with whatever you want, you can call the shots. You’re doing me a favour.”

Callum says, “A favour,” and touches Ben’s face. His thumb lands somewhere on Ben’s chin, his fingers splayed over Ben’s ear. He has no idea why he’s done it, just that he’d suddenly wanted to. Make it believable. He feels Ben swallow. “Sorry. Is this okay?”

“Your hand is literally the size of my head,” Ben replies, which isn’t really an answer. “I knew it would be.”

Callum releases him. “What?”

“It’s fine,” Ben says. “If you want to do, uh, _that_. It’s fine.”

“Okay.” Callum folds his arms, secures his traitorous hands so that they won’t reach out again. “And it’s - you don’t have to keep saying I’m doing you a favour. I’m here of my own free will. I could have said no.”

“Yeah. You could have.”

Callum looks at Ben. Ben looks back, though Callum can’t read (has never been able to read) what Ben’s eyes are trying to tell him. He has a ridiculous idea to ask _what about kissing, should we kiss_ because there’s something heavy in the air all of sudden, like someone has turned up a tension switch, like if he asked now Ben would say _yes. We should_. Which isn’t real, Ben would never say that. _None_ of this is real. Callum is stood too close, still from the hugging, so he takes a step back. Something shadows behind Ben’s eyes. Callum clears his throat and there’s noise downstairs, a crowd of people in the hall.

“I think your mum’s back,” he tells Ben. 

Ben shakes his head, not disagreeing, but more like he’s trying to shake away something. “Okay. Let’s get this show started then.”

***

The third and fourth Beales are Ian (who shakes Callum’s hand very formally) and Kathy (who takes Ben’s chin in her head and says, “I worried about you” even though worrying about Ben is probably a constant state of mind at this point). When she’s released Ban she clasps her hands to Callum’s cheeks and says, “I’m so glad. I knew he liked you. I kept telling him and he kept denying it but, I knew. Look at you. Were you always this tall?”

Callum says, “Yes”, in agreement of his tallness. “It’s great to see you Kathy.”

She smiles and leans back to look at him and Ben, like she’s framing a photograph. Callum shifts his weight from one foot to the other. There are suddenly a lot of Beales, a lot of _family_ , all in one place. The room is crowded in a way he’s never been used to. He instinctively moves a little closer to Ben and Ben glances up at him, surprised and then more gently. He bumps his elbow to Callum’s and whispers, “Okay?”, as Kathy moves on to Bobby.

Callum nods, but the slight feeling of being overwhelmed stays with him right through into dinner. He eats slowly, and not much (even though Ian’s cooking is amazing). It’s loud, everyone talking at once and over each other, food being passed plate to plate, so crowded around the table that he knocks arms with Bobby every time he reaches for his drink. He hadn’t expected _this_ to be the difficult bit. The noise. He’d never known how quiet his flat actually was. 

“So,” Kathy says, several glasses of wine later. “Tell me how this finally happened.” She gestures her fork between Callum and Ben.

Ben says, “ _Mum_.”

“Please. Humour me. You don’t have to give all the details.”

“You know most of it.” Ben looks at Callum and it probably looks fond from Kathy’s side of the table, only Callum can see the question in it, like Ben is checking that it’s okay to continue. “You know how we met.”

“Well, yes. I remember you coming and begging for free lunch so you could take it to the new boy in the funeral parlour.”

“Yeah,” Ben says, “That. But I guess it was just from there.” He looks at Callum, desperately, as though he’s not the one to blame for this whole situation. “It just happened. Didn’t it.”

Kathy’s face has fallen a little, not having received the story she wanted, and Bobby looks disappointed, and these two things combined make Callum think it’s a good idea to say, “It was just - I don’t really have much of a family, really. People aren’t - I don’t normally have people pay attention to me or look out for me, and my brother wasn’t around then and I was here on my own and Ben was the first person who went out of his way to be nice to me. And Jay, obviously, but it was, um, different with Ben. If that makes sense. He paid attention to me and I don’t - that’s not something that usually happens. And I didn’t really know how to say it until he was - well until the day he got arrested. Which, you all know what happened after that. I guess.”

Peter says, “Not great timing,” and everyone laughs except for Ben, who is staring with Callum with his mouth slightly open. 

Kathy brightens. “That’s lovely,” she tells Callum. 

“Yeah, “ he says. “I suppose it is.”

He supposes it could have been.

***

Ben is lying on the patch of floor with one of his coats pulled over him. It doesn’t look comfortable. He says something into the carpet and Callum, from the bed, says, “What?”

Ben repeats it, still muffled.

“I can’t hear you.”

Ben rolls onto his back and immediately hits the wall with his arm. He curses under his breath and then says, “Was it too much? Not this, not you and me, I meant with everyone. I didn’t think about that bit. To me there’s not that many of us but I should have -”

“It was fine. Just a bit loud. But it’s nice. They’re all nice.”

“Even Ian?”

“Even Ian.” 

“And it’s not weird?”

Callum hesitates because it _is_ weird. They’d both gone to the bathroom to get changed and when Ben had come back Callum had already been in bed with the duvet pulled right up to his chin. He can’t find his footing in what they are; they’re not friends, they haven’t been friends for a while, and now he’s supposed to sleep here, with Ben at his feet, listening to him move around. “It’s weird,” he says. “It’s really weird. Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.” Ben rolls back into his stomach. “What you said. At dinner.”

Callum waits. When Ben doesn’t elaborate he says, “Yeah?” There’s a small thud followed by an _ow_ which can only be Ben hitting some part of himself on the wall again. Callum sighs. “Come up here, we’ll swap.”

“There’s no way you’ll be able to sleep. And I’m used to it. Prison beds aren’t exactly comfy.” There’s a pause where Callum listens to Ben breathe, in and out, a slight rasp on the in. “Callum, what you said at dinner.”

“Yeah?”

“It was true,” Ben says.

“Yeah. It was.”

“I didn’t pay attention to you to be _nice_ to you. I’m not a nice person.”

“I don’t know if that’s right.” Callum rolls a little closer to the edge of the bed. The pillows smell like Ben’s aftershave, if he dropped his arm over the side it would land on Ben’s shoulder. “You were nice to me.”

“I just mean I didn’t exactly have noble intentions. At first.”

“It was a long time ago,” Callum says. “I might be remembering it wrong. And if I’m saying stuff that’s too honest then you can tell me to stop. I know I’m - I was in a different place with it compared to you.”

He’s nearly asleep when he hears Ben, softly, say, “You’re not remembering it wrong.” Callum waits to see if there’s more but there’s nothing, just the gentle sound of Ben’s inhales and exhales. Eventually, he falls asleep.

***

The next morning Callum gets up early and steps over Ben (still curled up in front of the door) to go for a jog. He shakes Ben’s shoulder gently and says, “You can get in the bed. I’m going out.” When he comes back from changing into his running gear Ben is sitting up, halfway under the duvet. He says, “Are you leaving?”

“No.” Callum gestures to himself. “Just going for a run, I do every - are you okay?”

Ben takes in what Callum’s wearing, blinks and readjusts his glasses. He blushes, very slightly, but Callum supposes that’s just the awkwardness of the situation, crawling into a bed that Callum’s just left. “Yeah, just tired. I thought you were leaving.”

“What, like walking out? Why?”

“I don’t know.” Ben tries to pat down his fringe. At some point in the night he’s stopped using his coat as a blanket and changed into a tartan dressing-gown that looks like something Callum’s grandad would have worn. His glasses are on a slant and there’s a huge crease across his face from sleeping on carpet. He looks soft, softer than Callum has ever seen him. He wants nothing more than to crawl into bed next to him. _I would never leave_ he almost says. _Have you seen yourself? How could I?_

Callum pulls at the string of his hoodie. “I wouldn’t.”

Ben shakes his head. “No.” 

“Maybe I could meet you in the cafe in an hour? For breakfast?”

“An _hour_? Where are you running to?”

“Just around. It clears my head. I started it after everything.”

Ben, knowing that he is the _everything_ , says, “Okay. The cafe, I’ll be there. Stay in the leggings.”

***

It turns out that his thoughts can’t be cleared. They’re a steady stream of his forehead to Ben’s shoulder, Ben’s hand on his back, _begging for free lunch so he could take it to the new boy in the parlour_ , Ben folded into the space between the bed and the door, _you’re not remembering it wrong_. He’s always thought that he wasn’t, he’s gone over the details of the thing enough to know that there was probably a point, somewhere, that Ben liked him. Had feelings for him. Whatever casual way you wanted to put it. Ben had just wanted it to stay casual whereas Callum had taken it too far and made it real.

He runs for almost over an hour, when he gets to the cafe he can feel that his hair is flat against his forehead. Ben, waiting on the little table outside, looks at him (for a second) like Callum is the best thing he’s ever seen (here, in his grey hoodie and running leggings). Like he really is his boyfriend and they’re meeting for breakfast. Why had Callum even suggested meeting? He blames Ben’s glasses, the gentleness of his face when he’s just woken up. He’d wanted to keep it, just for a little longer.

“You took off your glasses,” he says, at the same time as Ben says, “I’ve ordered.”

He then says, “Okay,” at the same time as Ben says, “I hate wearing them.”

“Why?” Callum asks, before Ben can add anything more. “I like them.”

Ben freezes, very briefly, then starts pulling all of the sugar packets from the bowl in front of them, one by one. “Thanks. And sorry for assuming you were leaving. I know you wouldn’t do that. You _don’t_ do that.”

“They really are nice,” Callum says. “Your family.”

“The Beale side maybe. You never met the Mitchells.”

“And you’ve never met the Highways.”

“Hey. Your brother runs my fanclub. Or I hope he still does.”

Callum smiles, watches Ben notice his dimple. “He still does. And he’s just protective, you know that.”

“I can’t blame him. What does he make of this?” Ben points to himself and then to Callum, touches his index finger to Callum’s wrist. “He probably told you it was an awful idea.”

“He did.”

“And you did it anyway.”

Callum clears his throat. “He would - if it was real, he’d accept it. He wants me to be happy. That’s what he’s gonna say if your mum asks him. He didn’t want to upset her or anything.”

Ben nods. “I think.” His voice slows, like every word is a trap he’s trying to avoid. “I think everyone just wants you to be happy.”

“You including yourself in that?”

“Obviously. I always - I’m sorry about how it ended, Callum. And how much of a prat I was in the whole time before it. That’s what I was trying to say when I saw you at the club but, I’m bad at that. You know I am.”

“At what, talking?”

“No, I’m amazing at that.” Ben smirks, then is abruptly sincere. The real Ben again, the one Callum sees in glimpses. “I’m bad at being honest.”

“I think you’re _scared_ of being honest,” Callum corrects and is saved from having to elaborate on that by the arrival of their breakfasts. He picks at his toast as Ben eats his in three bites. 

“You’ve been okay though?” Ben asks, mouth full. “Since - for the past two years. You’ve been fine?”

“Yeah.” Callum gestures to himself. “Nothing’s changed.”

“I think you’ve changed.”

Callum is genuinely surprised. “How?”

“You’re more confident. You stand up for yourself more. You don’t hide in crowds. You used to be so quiet, I spent so long just trying to get you to speak. Not even to me, but just to say something in general. Then I saw you last week and you were all _did you want something_.” He does a rough impression of Callum’s voice, softer and more rounded than his. It’s not very good. “I sorta couldn’t believe it was you.”

“It’s me.”

Ben, still almost doing an impression of Callum, tone gentle and breaking, says, “I know.”

Callum almost says _you’ve changed too_ but he’s not entirely sure that Ben wants to hear that. He still seems the same in general, the bravado masking the real person underneath (the Ben that maybe would have been if he’d just been a Beale, not a Mitchell), but there’s a slight hesitancy about him that was never there before. Callum can’t remember Ben ever stopping to think about something in his life, now he seems to consider words, the expressions shown on his face, the tone in which he says things. Does prison do that? Make you more cautious? Callum supposes so. He should really ask Stuart.

“Come back,” Ben says, leaning over to almost, not quite, tap his knuckles against Callum’s forehead. 

“What?”

“You went.” Ben waves his hand over his face. “Somewhere. Inside your own brain. That’s rude when you’re at breakfast with someone.” He’s teasing but almost concerned. “I thought the run was meant to clear your head.”

“It didn’t,” Callum replies, not meanly but honestly. “I’m thinking about a lot of things at the moment.”

“It’s only for three more days. Then you can get back to peace and quiet and never have to speak to me again.”

“You think I never want to speak to you again?”

“I don’t know,” Ben says. “We didn’t exactly leave on good terms.”

“And yet you still picked me to be your boyfriend.”

“Yeah.” Ben makes a mountain of his sugar packets. “I did.” He crushes the packets beneath his fist. “I meant - What I said earlier, I meant it. I didn’t want things to end like that, not with you, I - I don’t know why I did it.”

“You told me why. You had to help your dad.”

“Not that. The earlier stuff. I don’t know.” Ben runs a hand down his face and sighs. “I’m - I’ve got some stuff to do today, are you alright by yourself? You can go back to the house or you might want to be by yourself after last night, I can text you when I -”

“No, I’ll go to the house.” Callum feels adrift, like the conversation was going somewhere and Ben, realising it, had immediately pulled the floor out from underneath both of them. He always did that when things became too real. “It’s nice.”

“What, the house?”

“No.” Callum looks at his hands, his uneaten toast, the scuffed silver surface of the table. “Having a family.”

When he looks up Ben’s expression almost makes him jump. He looks like he’s seeing Callum for the first time, or the hundredth time, like a crowd has parted and Callum is suddenly there in the centre. He looks like no one ever, in the history of anything, has referred to him as part of a _family_. Or as a thing worth having. He looks like he’s two seconds (and two years too late) from asking Callum to run away with him. 

Callum starts to apologise, as if he’s seen something Ben didn’t want him to see, but Ben shakes himself back into his Mitchell persona and says, “Yeah, it’s amazing. Look, I have some stuff to do. I’ll see you later.” He stands so quickly that he almost upends the table.

“I’m sorry,” Callum stammers. “If I -”

Ben says, “No,” though to what Callum isn’t sure, and then leans in and presses his mouth to Callum’s cheek, almost right on the place where his dimple lives. It’s not great, Ben almost loses his balance from holding himself over the table and Callum makes a shocked noise that’s far too loud, but there’s the smell of Ben’s aftershave, the feel of his coat sleeve when Callum brings one hand up, the way he mumbles _nothing to be sorry about_ , and Callum (feeling brave) brings his hand up further and touches the side of Ben’s face. 

“Right.” Ben steps back. “See you.”

Callum is too shocked to do anything other than watch him leave (in a swirl of plaid coat). By the time he manages to say, “See you,” Ben is halfway across the Square.

***

Bobby is the only Beale still in the house. He’s watching old episodes of Doctor Who, sprawled right across the sofa. His face brightens when Callum walks in, and he shifts over to give him space to sit. “I thought you were out with Ben.”

“He had to go somewhere. Stuff to do.”

“Oh.” Bobby makes air quotes with his fingers. “ _Stuff_.”

“I don’t know. I don’t ask.”

“I don’t think he does that sorta thing anymore. Dad says he probably wants to change for you. But I said I think he’s already changed for you.”

Callum tries to laugh but it comes out as a small _hah_. “I don’t think -”

Bobby says, “No, he got really drunk the night he came back and he said a load of stuff, which makes sense now, but I didn’t realise. It was only to me. He says I’m the only one who listens to him around here.”

Callum repeats, “A load of stuff?”

“He didn’t say it was about you.”

It takes every ounce of self-control that Callum possesses not to ask _what did he say_. He wants to beg Bobby for every single detail (though it probably wasn’t about him, if he didn’t say so then there’s no way of confirming that). Ben can get poetic when he’s drunk, all of the walls he builds around himself collapse and then rebuild as he gets more sober. Callum flexes his hand on his knee. _What did he say?_ He tries to judge how casually he should say it, so not to raise suspicion 

He waits too long. Bobby’s attention span is a wavering thing that never manages to stick, rather like his smiles. Callum says, “What -” and Bobby says, “I used to want to be Doctor Who.”

“Really?” Callum leans back, pushes himself into the plush of the sofa. “Why?”

“I always wanted to get away from here. This place seems so small sometimes. Everyone knows you and your business. And what you’ve done.” There’s a pause after that. Callum knows, like everyone knows, what Bobby’s _done_. There just really isn’t much you can say about it. They both watch Christopher Eccleston look out across a great golden expanse of universe. “I liked the idea of exploring. Being in a different place every day. Being on my own. No one would ever be able to find me unless I wanted them to. Would you like that?”

“I don’t know. I always just want -” Callum searches for the word. “Stability, I suppose. I moved around a lot when I was a kid. Lots of different places. And I was always on my own because my parents weren’t really around that much. I don’t know, it’s not - it wasn’t for me. I just wanted to find a place that was mine and stay there.”

“Like here?” Bobby asks. “With Ben?”

Callum flexes his hand again. “Yes,” he says. 

“I knew that,” Bobby says. “That’s what he said. _I can’t give him the life he deserves, Bob_. And I said that he could. But I didn’t know he was talking about you, obviously. He should have said. I give great advice.”

“I bet you do. You’re a good nephew.”

“I’m his _favourite_ nephew,” Bobby clarifies, with no shame whatsoever. 

“Yeah.” Callum smiles. “You are.”

They watch a few episodes of Doctor Who, Bobby patiently explains every character, every planet, every quest, with more enthusiasm than Callum has seen him use for anything. Every planet description ends with _I’d like to go there_ and Callum nods but really thinks _I’d like to stay right here_.

***

In the evening they go for dinner at Ian’s restaurant. Ben returns about ten minutes before they’re due to leave and Kathy, jokingly but maybe not, says “You left him on his own all day”, gesturing to Callum. Bobby, loyally, immediately clarifies, “He wasn’t on his own, he was with me.” Callum stands awkwardly in the middle, wearing a light grey blazer that he can’t remember owning let alone actually packing, and studies Ben’s face for any new bruises. There are none.

He finally asks “Where have you been?” while they’re walking across the Square, the Beales several steps ahead of them. 

“Why, were you worried?”

“Yes,” Callum says. “I was.”

Ben looks at him and Callum watches as he obviously tries to decide whether to joke or be genuine. Callum can see the whole thing play out behind his eyes. Genuine seems to win because he says, “It was nothing. It was like you said, I just needed to clear my head. I didn’t run though, obviously. Just walked.”

Callum nods. “Okay.”

“I haven’t spoken to my dad for two years,” Ben adds, out of nowhere. “If you’re - If that’s something that worries you. You don’t need to.”

“You’re not speaking to your dad?” Callum almost stops walking. Phil Mitchell, unseen yet always looming from the shadows somehow, a weight on Ben’s shoulders, a whisper in Ben’s ear. _He’s not my dad_ Ben said, sometimes. _He’s just the bloke who got my mum pregnant. Like your dad_. He’d had a hold, an influence, over Ben that Callum thought could never be broken. “For two years? Really?”

Kathy glances back at them and frowns. Callum wonders why and then he and Ben both seem to realise that they’re walking in a very casual way. Ben has his arms folded. Callum sighs and reaches out, pats at Ben’s elbow until he drops his arm, then places his hand in Ben’s (or really, _around_ Ben’s). 

“Two years,” Callum repeats.

Ben looks at their joined hands and pats his thumb to Callum’s knuckle. “It wasn’t - he was never grateful. Which I know sounds weird, like I would have carried on doing all that stuff if he’d said thank you once, but I did so much. I gave up so much. I gave up things I didn’t even _have_. And then I went to prison and he ran off to Portugal and nothing. He just sent a text when I got out asking if I could do a job for him.”

“And you didn’t reply.”

“And I didn’t reply.” 

“I'm - “ Callum looks down at their hands too. It’s so domestic, so much what he wants, walking here with Ben’s family in front, going out for dinner, Callum wearing a jacket that Ben had picked an invisible piece of thread from and said _I like this on you_ before they left. It’s everything and nothing. It’s not real. “I’m proud of you.”

Ben half-misses a step, Callum has to keep him upright. “Oh. I - Thanks. It’s not really anything to be proud of, it’s - You shouldn’t be proud of me, I’m just out of prison, I’m not -”

“You’re proud of Bobby,” Callum points out. “And he was in prison.”

“But Bobby’s a decent person.”

“So are you.”

“You’re really committing to this.”

“To what?”

Ben drops his voice. “Pretending to be my boyfriend.”

Callum laughs, exactly as he had done with Bobby, not even a laugh, just a sad little _hah_ that surely just makes it obvious that he’s really not pretending at all.

***

The dinner is good, as all of Ian’s dinners are. Watching him in his business, rather than at home, is completely different. Peter and Ben tease him for the military precision with which he stares at the food, the way he monitors the waiters, while Bobby (next to Callum again) folds his napkin into something that looks like a swan. Ben, next to Callum on the other side, has his arm stretched out on the top of Callum’s chair. Every so often Callum leans and feels the solid weight of Ben’s hand against his back.

He walks home with Kathy, her hand daintily linked through his elbow because she’s apparently had too much wine to walk unsupported. Callum doubts this. She fumbles with the strap of her handbag, long enough for everyone else to almost be out of sight across the Square, and says, “Alone at last. I’ve been waiting for the chance to speak to you properly.”

“To me? Why?”

“Well I wanted to say - I wanted to say a lot of things actually, but I really want to thank you. For looking after Ben. I worry about him, I’ve always worried about him, I thought he was getting away from me a bit but he’s different now. With you. Or not even different, he’s like he was before. And I think that has a lot to do with you.” She pokes at Callum’s arm. “I knew he liked you, for so long. He would talk about you so much and then he suddenly didn’t and I thought something had happened, like you weren’t speaking, but I suppose it was the opposite.”

“I suppose it was,” Callum says, even though it wasn’t.

“He loves you. I knew he did, and he does.”

Callum feels like his heart has burst so many times, so often, over the past two years, that there can’t be much of it left. Just some small pieces that possibly once resembled a heart. He feels them shiver and contract. His arm must tremble under Kathy’s hand, his whole _being_ is trembling. He doesn’t know what to say. He should agree, that would be the normal thing to do, but he can’t. To say that Ben loves him would be like taking those remaining segments and crushing them.

“He does,” Kathy repeats, obviously waiting for Callum to step in and tell her she’s right. 

“I love him,” Callum tells her instead, because it’s the only truthful thing he can say.

***

Ben is back on the patch of floor, now covered by all his coats, all the varying plaid and leather. From somewhere underneath the pile he says, “We were gonna send a search party. Did Mum get you lost?”

Callum feels very tired. He’s already changed into his pyjamas (after making sure that a suddenly steady on her feet Kathy made it up the stairs safely) and he just wants to face plant onto the bed and sleep through the next two days. He blames the tiredness for the fact that he says, “Come up here.”

One of the coats moves and Ben’s face appears. “What?”

“You can’t sleep down there. And I can’t listen to you banging into the wall all night again. There’s no room. Come up here.”

“You can’t sleep down here.”

“I’m not going to.”

“We’re -” Ben stops, moves another coat so he can free his arms. “We’re both going to -”

“There’s space,” Callum says. “There’s loads of space.”

“You’re seven foot tall.”

Callum repeats, “There’s space.”

Ben stares at him, from his burrow of coats, then pushes himself off the floor until he’s standing beside the bed. He holds the nearest corner of the duvet between two fingers, lifts it a millimeter. “Are you sure? I move a lot in my sleep, my brain never really settles down, I’ll kick. People say that I do that.”

Callum says, “I’m really tired. Please just get in.”

Ben does, and instantly curls himself into a ball so that no part of him can possibly be touching Callum. The heat radiating off his body makes it feel like they’re touching anyway. Callum folds his hands neatly across his chest and stays flat on his back. Ben moves slightly and his ankle brushes Callum’s knee. Callum hears the sharp intake of his breath as he somehow contorts himself into a smaller shape. Callum sighs and Ben sighs back, a whole conversation in breaths. 

“Thanks for spending time with Bobby,” Ben whispers. “Mum and Ian worry that he doesn’t speak to enough people. And he likes you.”

“I like him. He’s a good kid.”

“My whole family likes you. A lot. Peter told me I’m an idiot if I let you go. Which I suppose means that I’m already an idiot, doesn’t it?” He sighs. “I think sometimes about what would have happened if I hadn’t left.”

“You didn’t _leave_. You went to prison. It wasn’t exactly optional.”

“No, but.” Ben moves again. The closeness of him is too much. Callum is ready to go and bury himself in Ben’s coats on the tiny floor space. “I knew it was a bad job. Jay told me it was. _You_ told me it was and we weren’t even really speaking then. I just could only see what could happen if it went right.”

“Which was?”

“That my dad would love me. But, I mean, I get that now. He’ll never love me. Not really. Not for myself. Not like Mum does. Not like, uh, other people did.”

“I get that,” Callum says. “With dads. I just never knew what mine thought about me at all. Other than he probably wouldn’t like me.”

“There’s nothing not to like about you.”

Callum would usually deflect the compliment (as he deflects all compliments) but he’s tired, he’s _so_ tired, so he says, “Thanks Ben,” like Ben has just handed him a precious gift.

Ben, very softly, says, “You’re welcome,” which is the last thing that Callum hears before he falls asleep.

***

At the end, or what Callum came to think of as “the end”, Ben was rarely in the funeral parlour, or he would deliberately only be there when Jay was and never came into the office (where Callum spent most of his time). The lunches stayed anonymously placed on his desk in a way that only annoyed him. He wanted to yell at Ben _I know it’s you, just stay. Leave a note. Anything_.

Callum has never really believed that people like him, let alone have crushes on him, but he sometimes could admit that there were signs, signals, that Ben did. Had. At some point. If he really thought about it, broke down all the ways that Ben would go out of his way to get into Callum’s space, it seemed obvious. So obvious that Callum wondered why he’d never done anything about it. Ben had been there, hovering, waiting for things to happen at Callum’s pace but maybe hadn’t expected Callum’s pace to be quite so slow. And he’d lost patience. That was fine. Callum could understand that. He just couldn’t shake the idea that he’d let the chance pass by.

Ben was gone from the Square for longer periods of time, always returning with bruises and envelopes stuffed with what Callum guessed was money. He sometimes tried to give the envelopes to Jay, which caused lots of whispered arguments that Callum was never part of. He would stare at the greens, yellows and purples that cascaded over Ben’s cheeks and somehow think it was his fault. That maybe by not being honest, by not saying _I love you, I’m in love with you, I am in love with you_, he’d encouraged Ben to go off and do whatever he was doing. 

He finally asked Jay, “Is Ben okay?”, during some quiet period where they were checking the parlour accounts. 

Jay looked like he’d been waiting for Callum to ask that exact thing. “No. I’m worried about him. He’s always - He’s taking jobs that he shouldn’t be. Getting involved in - It’s about his dad. He always has to prove himself.” He looked at Callum. “Have you two argued?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You never speak to each other anymore.”

“He stays away from me.”

Jay looked puzzled. “Why?”

Because I said _I know you_ , Callum thought but didn’t say. He’d pinpointed that down as the moment where everything changed, had considered it constantly, why it had been the wrong thing to say. _I know you_ implied _I know who you are_ and Ben seems terrified of people knowing that. They have that in common, that’s what Callum would say if they ever spoke again. _I’m scared of people knowing me too, but sometimes you have to let people know you. Like me. I love you_. He’d rehearsed it in his mind. If there was ever an occasion where he and Ben were alone together he was just going to say it. Outloud. No more missed chances or not saying the things he really wanted to. He would say it and Ben would know.

Jay frowned, like he’d somehow heard all of that. “Well, can you speak to him? He’s taken on this thing, this job, for Phil. It’s not going to end well. The police are half onto it already and I keep telling him, I’m _telling_ him, not to do it. But he doesn’t listen to me. He _never_ -”

“I can speak to him. I can try.”

Callum had wanted, wants, will always want, to protect Ben from the world. He would walk two steps ahead of Ben so Ben could use him as a shield against the world, and they could swap sometimes because Callum is fairly sure that Ben wants to do the same for him. _We could be happy_ he added to the list of things he’s going to say to Ben. _When I don’t think either of us have been that happy before. Don’t you want that, don’t you want to be_.

He looked for Ben in all the usual places before finding him in the Arches, leant right back in his chair with his feet on the desk. He blinked at Callum, like he had for weeks, like looking at Callum made him want to cover his eyes. 

“I need to talk to you,” Callum said. 

“Did Jay put you up to this?”

“No, it’s just me.”

“But Jay’s told you something, I’m guessing.”

“He did.”

Ben pushed his chair onto its two back legs, balanced himself in mid-air. “And you’re here to tell me not to do it.”

“I don’t know what _it_ is.”

“Good. I don’t want you to know.”

Callum, already annoyed at the plaintiveness of his voice before he even _spoke_ , asked, “Why don’t you speak to me anymore?”

Ben let the chair fall forward. “I’m speaking to you now.”

“You know what I mean. Did I _offend_ you or something, did I say something wrong? Just tell me what it was and I -”

“It was the opposite,” Ben said. “The complete opposite. Look, I’m doing you a favour by avoiding you.”

The confirmation of it, despite the fact that Callum really already knew, stung. He pulled at his tie, at the cuffs of his funeral suit. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m no good for you. For anyone.” Ben stood up, stepped around Callum to the door. “It’s - Look, it’s sweet that you care, you’re a nice -”

“Hey.” Callum stepped right behind him, followed him outside. “Don’t say it like that. That’s not fair. I _do_ care and Jay said that there’s some job that you’re about to do and it’s dangerous and I know it’s for your dad, but -”

“And you want to talk me out of it.”

“I see you.” They were almost into the Square now, Ben was walking quickly but Callum’s height meant he could do two steps to Ben’s one. He easily kept up. “I see the bruises. I see the money. I see the _jobs_. And I don’t like it, Ben. I know, I’ve always known what you do, but it’s different, you know that. And I don’t know why you don’t talk to me about it.”

Ben didn’t say anything until they stopped at the entrance to the tube station. There he turned, studied Callum closely (like he was searching for evidence on his face), and finally said, “Why are you so bothered about me?”

Callum had never felt more observed, or more aware of himself. He could feel his breath stutter, his shirt collar rub against his chin, the small shiver through his hands, he suddenly felt too tall, too on show. He wanted to take off his funeral jacket and hide both him and Ben in it. The market noise behind him descended into silence. “What?”

“Why are you so bothered?”

“About you?”

“About me.”

“You know why.”

“Maybe I do.” Ben tried to sound teasing, attempted to give his voice that uplift that showed he wasn’t serious, but it didn’t work. He sounded like Callum. He sounded sincere. “It might help if you said it though.”

Callum hesitated and maybe that was a misstep, the hesitation, because Ben spun on his heel and walked into the station. Callum shook himself into life and stepped after him. “Wait.”

“I’m no good for -”

“Stop.” Callum wasn’t sure if he meant the walking or the speaking but they both stopped. Ben turned around. “Don’t do whatever this job is. Just stay here. I don’t want you to get arrested, or hurt, I don’t want any of that. I just want you to stay here. I don’t know what I said, but I’m scared of people knowing me too, but sometimes you have to let people know you. Like me. I love you. I’m in love with you. I am in love with you.”

It came out perfectly, that was the worst thing. It came out exactly as he’d planned it. 

Ben staggered backwards very slightly, as though Callum had reached out and punched him in the shoulder. “No.” He reached out almost like he was going to grab at whatever part of Callum he could get to, and then pulled back. “Why did you have to say that?”

“I wanted to. You asked me to.”

Ben looked stricken. “I - I have to _go_ , I have a job.”

“You don’t have to go, you can stay right here.”

“No,” Ben said. “You don’t love me. You think you do, but you don’t.” He turned back, scanned his card and stepped through the ticket barriers. They closed behind him and it seemed to give him bravery, having a wall between him and Callum. He turned. “You think you can help me, which is fine, Iike I said, it’s sweet. You’re really sweet. But I can’t do sweet. I ruin it. I ruin everything. You should find someone else, someone who -”

“Ben.” There were people walking around them, Callum was blocking an entire queue from using the barrier. “Please. Just stay. We can talk properly. I shouldn’t have said it like that, I’ve said everything wrong the whole time. I should have told you before. Don’t go.”

“I have to,” Ben said. “It’s for my dad.”

And that turned out to be the last thing he would say to Callum for two years. Callum said, “Then come back, I’m asking you to come back,” as Ben walked away and that (Ben’s grey plaid disappearing into a crowd) was it. The next Callum heard he’d been arrested in some shipping yard while his dad did a runner and it went from there to charges to a bail amount no one could afford and then to prison. 

He thought about writing but what would he say: _hey remember when I told you I loved you in Walford East tube station and you still left. Remember how you told me that I should find someone else. Remember that_. It reminded him why he doesn’t tell people how he feels, why he prefers to keep things close to his chest (secret, safe). If you do that then it doesn’t hurt. If you do that then you’ll never have to stand in the middle of a crowd of commuters while someone turns away from you. It’s just easier. 

Though if he had written he knows what he would really have said: _hey remember when I told you I loved you in Walford East tube station. I still do_.

***

Ben must have rolled into him during the night. Callum walks up to find him huddled against his side, face turned into Callum’s neck, nose just under Callum’s ear, hand flat on Callum’s chest. Callum’s arm is curled around Ben’s back, and when he moves Ben makes a soft noise and moves with him. His mouth is almost against Callum’s pulse, close enough for Callum to feel every catch in his breath, and his hand twitches. He really wasn’t lying about being a restless sleeper. Their positions almost look deliberate, like Callum was trying to hold Ben in place. Callum sighs and Ben must feel it under his palm because he shifts and rubs his thumb in circles, very slightly, pushing at the fabric of Callum’s t-shirt.

Callum says, “Morning” too loudly and still strangled with sleep (and something else). 

Ben presses his nose into the hollow beneath Callum’s ear and mumbles, “Morning,” in a very fond way and then, abruptly, “Morning,” in a very awake way. He turns onto his back, obviously not realising how connected they are, and takes Callum with him. Callum moves away but his arm remains trapped under Ben. “Sorry. It’s - I move around a lot in my sleep.” He squints, without glasses or contacts, as if trying to bring Callum into focus. 

“You didn’t,” Callum lies. “It’s okay.”

Ben hums. Callum really needs to pull his arm away. He doesn’t _want_ to, but he needs to. It feels too much like he’s holding Ben, cradling Ben in his hands. Ben reaches and pushes Callum’s fringe up, then pats it back down. 

“It’s a mess.”

“No,” Ben says. “I like it when it’s all across your forehead.” He pushes it down again. His movements are clumsy, again Callum supposes from not being able to see well. “Like when you came back from your run.”

Callum repeats, “It’s a mess,” either about his hair or the situation. 

Ben says, “I don’t think so,” either about Callum’s hair or the situation. “Are you going for another run?”

“Maybe?”

“Your head still need clearing?”

“All the time,” Callum says. He sits up, finally freeing his arm from underneath Ben. “Last night, when I was walking back with your mum.” He stops, not even sure of what he’s trying to say. Ben is watching him intently. “Why did you pick me for this?”

“I told you, because my family like you.”

“But you did it from the start. This isn’t like a sudden decision you made when you got out. You said that I’d been writing to you the whole time or like you only just realised you lo- liked me when you were about to leave. And that’s not true.”

Ben mumbles, “Isn’t it.”

“You could have picked someone else. It didn’t need to be me. You could have made someone up, you could have got someone from an app, I don’t know - your mum just wants to know that you’re with someone. It didn’t have to be me. So, why?”

“I didn’t want someone from an app.”

“Why not, you usually do.”

Ben puts his hand to his heart, lets it settle and then, very dramatically, says, “Ouch.”

“I just don’t understand why it’s me. Why you picked me.”

“Why _wouldn’t_ I pick you?”

“I don’t know.” Callum finally summons up all the bravery he can, every hidden strand of it, and says, “Because I told you I loved you and you said you didn’t and then you left. Did you pick me because I’m the easiest option? Because you knew I was here? Because you knew I’d agree to it?”

Ben stares at him for what feels like a long time. His jaw is clenched, like he’s trying to stop any emotion bubbling up to show on his face. “I didn’t say that.”

“What?”

“That I didn’t love you. I never said that.”

“You did.” Callum tries to cast his mind back but he’s tried so hard to forget it even happened that most of the details are lost. “I know you did.”

“I didn’t.” Ben clears his throat. “I wouldn't have.”

It may have been something Callum added to make himself feel worse, or for the situation to make more sense. It _only_ made sense that Ben would leave if he didn’t feel the same way. It was somehow easier to deal with than the alternative; that Ben loved him and left anyway. Chose his dad. All Callum can see is Ben looking back at him over a ticket barrier, eyes wide and red (had he been crying? He can’t have been), lips moving with words Callum has chosen not to remember. 

“I said that you didn’t love me,” Ben volunteers, almost lining up with the past Ben in Callum’s head. “I said you just thought you did.”

“Oh.” Callum has to get out of bed. He started this conversation, he knows, but it’s getting away from him, becoming too honest. “That - That isn’t true.”

Ben blinks, reaches out. “Present tense?” His lack of glasses makes his spatial awareness off-centre and his hand, aiming for Callum’s shoulder probably, ends up at his wrist. Ben curls his fingers there, like a bracelet, closes the clasp and holds on. “You were gonna say something about last night. When you were walking back with my mum.”

“I need to go for a run.”

“You don’t have to _go_.”

“You can ask your mum,” Callum says, wildly. “She can tell you. It wasn’t anything massive, I don’t know why I brought it up, I just - I’ll come back, I’m not leaving.” He frees himself from the link of Ben’s fingers and repeats. “I’ll come back.”

He doesn’t look back at Ben when he leaves. He’s very aware of having said too much. And yet also not enough at all.

***

Callum, as a lonely kid, would sometimes follow other families home from any of his various schools. He would just pick the happiest and closest looking group (the ones who actually had parents come to meet them) and walk two steps behind them until they reached their cosy, well decorated looking flats. The inside of other people’s homes always amazed Callum. It was like peering into a snow globe, face pressed against plastic on the other side. _That’s what home is meant to look like_. At some point before entering someone would notice that the awkward, slightly too tall, boy at the back of the group didn’t actually belong and he’d be politely sent away. Some of the nicer ones would give him something to eat, or something to take home for dinner, and his mother would always be disgusted. _You have to stop doing that. People will think I don’t look after you. What if one of them follows you home_. But that never happened, no one followed Callum anywhere.

He jogs past the funeral parlour and has a brief glimpse of Jay trying to flag him down. He ignores him; he’s already been too honest this morning and Jay (who always seems to know things before they’re said out loud) would probably get him to admit even more. _To admit what_ he thinks to himself. _What are you not admitting_?

He’s not admitting a lot of things, he’s betrayed his own sincerity. He’d lied, saying that this whole thing was for Kathy, it was never all for Kathy. He’d done it for himself. Four days was better than nothing. Four days was something he could save, a memory of something that wasn’t entirely real but could have happened. Ben and Callum in an alternate universe. It was a terrible idea. It had _always_ been a terrible idea. 

When he loops back around Jay is in the middle of an intense looking conversation with Ben. Ben is still wearing his glasses and a maroon coloured hoodie that Callum recognises from the floor of his bedroom. Jay has his arms folded but Ben is gesticulating wildly. Callum hesitates, then takes an immediate left turn so that he doesn’t have to run by them. 

He almost collides with Peter, who makes a neat side step and then catches his arm. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Callum says, breathless. “Just jogging.”

“Really? It looked more like running from something chasing you.”

“No. Nothing like that.”

Peter looks over Callum’s shoulder anyway, just to apparently check that he’s telling the truth. His face softens and he says, “No, it’s only Ben. You probably didn’t see him.” Peter raises his voice. “Ben! Wait, did you just fall out of bed or something?”

Ben, very close behind Callum, says, “Or something.”

Peter glances at Ben then back to Callum. “Right. I’ll see you back at the house later.” He pats at Callum’s shoulder, having obviously decided that they’ve had an argument and Callum is in the right.

Ben waits until Peter’s fully out of hearing distance. “You didn’t have to run off. Literally.”

“It’s just a run. It’s just clearing my head - I told you.”

“Clearing your head of me?” Ben says. “Is that it? You need to get me out of your system?”

“No.” Callum shakes his head. “Never.”

“What do you mean, never?”

“I meant exactly that.” Callum shifts foot to foot, still too much pent up energy from stopping mid-run. 

Ben watches him for a second. “I spoke to my mum. Like you suggested.”

“Right.”

“She said.” Ben puts his hand on Callum’s elbow. Callum immediately stops moving. “She said that you _love_ me.” Ben says it like it’s a wondrous thing, the answer to an impossible code, the resolution to a problem, something impossible, like he’d fully imagined hearing it at all. “That you’d _said_ that you did. Present tense. Like, now. You love me now.” His grip on Callum’s elbow is so tight that Callum has to lean into it. 

Callum cannot believe that this is happening outside Beale’s Plaice, in the type of early morning drizzle where the Square always looks its worst. Ben’s glasses are smudged, Callum is out of breath, Ben is wearing a hoodie that’s been on the floor for at least a week, Callum’s hair is flat with rain and sweat. And yet this is when he says:

“I love you now,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you _sorry_?”

“I didn’t just do this for your mum. It was, like, ten percent for your mum, the rest was for me. I thought I could pretend this is what would have happened if. You know, if you’d - felt the same way.”

“I didn’t do it for my mum either. I did a bit, but I mostly just knew that you’re a nice person and that was the best way to convince you to agree,” Ben says, in a rush, and then there’s a pause where his hand slides up from Callum’s elbow to bicep. “I never said I didn’t feel the same way.”

“You said -”

“You’re remembering it wrong. Or you’re not remembering it _wrong_ , it’s just a bit messed up. You were right when you said at dinner, the other night, about me paying attention to you but it wasn’t even that, Callum, it was more like I had to have your attention on me. All the time. If you _smiled_ at me then that was the best thing that had happened to me for the entire day. The entire week. I have never met someone that I just wanted to be around so much and I didn’t know what to do with it because you’re such a _good_ person and I wanted you to have all the things you wanted so badly.”

“You stopped speaking to me.”

“It was easier. I made it too real, I was - I wasn’t good news then, I wasn’t even a good person then, I don’t know if I’m really a good person now, and I could see I was getting attached and -”

“Getting attached,” Callum states.

“Falling in love with you,” Ben corrects. “Is what I was doing. Just that. From the start. I never thought it would work so I was just sorta trying to keep you at a distance. I never knew how you _felt_ and I didn’t want - no, don’t cry, I’m saying - this is good. I’m saying the truth.”

Callum says, “I’m not crying,” then realises he is. He presses his thumbs to the corners of his eyes. “You left. I told you and you left.”

“I wasn’t expecting it, I didn’t -”

“I was obvious.” Callum pinches the top of his nose. “I was so obvious.”

“I was never sure. And you’re nice, you’re nice to everyone. I wasn’t in a good place then, I made so many wrong choices, and I just didn’t think we’d work. And that wouldn’t have been on you, it was all me. And I thought you’d be married or something, with joint gym memberships and a bulldog, but I got out and you _weren’t_ and I didn’t do it for my mum. Not completely. I did it because it’s what it should have been.”

“I would have preferred it without you being in prison.”

Ben half-shrugs. He’s smiling in a disbelieving way, eyes on Callum like he looks away he’ll wake up from a dream. “I mean, that was probably always gonna happen eventually.”

“But never again?”

“I can’t make promises.”

“Don’t tease me,” Callum says. He’s too fragile for teasing right now. Everything (including himself) feels like it’s made of glass, if he says the wrong thing or makes the wrong move it might shatter. “You didn’t think we’d work.”

“No.”

“But you think we could work now?”

“I think we could. I want us to.”

Callum cannot believe that this is happening outside Beale’s Plaice, in the type of early morning drizzle where the Square looks its best, raindrops catching the sun. Ben is wearing his glasses, the softest hoodie he owns, his hand is still a brand on Callum’s arm. Callum is breathless, his cheeks are salty with rain and tears, his hands are hot when he frames them around Ben’s face, thumbs meeting underneath his chin. There are a hundred things to say, and yet all that comes out from the options on Callum’s tongue is:

“Yeah?”

Ben laughs. “Yeah.”

It’s not the sort of earth shattering thing that Callum had imagined but he thinks that’s fine, life isn’t meant to be earth shattering all the time, and when he leans in to kiss Ben it’s almost awkward; he’s not prepared to accommodate for the glasses and his mouth lands somewhere between Ben’s top lip and nose. He almost apologises but Ben makes a satisfied noise, a _finally_ , an _at last_ , and tilts his head and then that’s it. It’s perfect. He pushes his fingers into the hinge of Ben’s jaw, sucks at Ben’s bottom lip, pulls at every sound Ben makes (and he’s making a lot, he’s so _loud_ ), feels Ben grabbing at the material of his t-shirt, hears the clicks and inhales every time their mouths separate, Jay somewhere in the background yells _get a room_. Callum splays his fingers out in Ben’s hair, leans against him, into him, bends his knees slightly to try and meet Ben’s height. Ben pulls back and Callum leans down further, noses at his collar to try and get to the skin underneath. 

“Callum,” Ben says, waveringly, and then again, firmly, “Callum. If this is - If this is going where I think it is I’m not doing it outside my brother’s chippy. Outside, yes, whatever you want, anything, but not - not with Jay watching.”

“Jay isn’t here.”

“I heard him.”

“Yeah, he told us to get a room.”

“Oh.” Ben pushes his forehead to Callum’s until Callum looks at him. “Maybe we should do that then.”

***

It’s not earth shattering but the ground feels like it’s moving anyway, vibrating under his feet; the concrete of the Square into the carpet of the Beale house into the clothes strewn floor of Ben’s bedroom to the still unmade bed to the overwashed burgundy of Ben’s hoodie as he lifts it over Ben’s head, sucks a line across his collarbone, his ear against the frantic fluttering of Ben’s heart. Callum puts his hand there and says, “It’s okay, it’s just me.”

Ben, over the roar of his hummingbird heartbeat, manages, “That’s the point.”

“That it’s me?”

Ben nods. His glasses have been knocked off somewhere along the way but he looks at Callum with perfect clarity. He always did. He has always been the only person who ever gave Callum their full attention. He touches Callum’s cheek, his mouth, smooths his thumb over the space between Callum’s eyebrows. 

“It’s you,” he says.

***

“Bobby said that you talked about me,” Callum mumbles. His face is turned to Ben’s, not close enough to do anything, they’re both too tired, they’ve both done too much. “The night you came back. He said you were drunk.”

Ben’s voice is drowsy. “I wasn’t _that_ drunk. I pretended once I started getting too honest.”

“He said you said you can’t give me the life I deserve.”

“I did say that. But I don’t even know if it’s possible for me to give you what I think you deserve. I’d have to be a millionaire or something.”

“I think I get to choose what I deserve.”

Ben laughs but he looks pleased. He touches his hand to Callum’s face and smiles when Callum pushes against it. “You’re talking like this is the rest of our lives.”

“Maybe I am.”

“Bit sudden isn’t it? We’ve only just said that we like each other.”

“I think we’ve been saying that the whole time actually.”

Ben’s eyebrows fold in a little. “Are you sure though? I’m - I’m hard-work. There still might be times where I need to be on my own, or I say things I don’t really mean, or I go off in a strop or something. I’m not gonna pretend that I’ve completely changed.”

“I don’t want you to change,” Callum says. “I know you.”

“Yeah.” Ben smiles, presses his thumb to Callum’s revealed dimple. “You do.”

***

On Kathy’s final night they all go out for dinner again. Ben invites Jay, Callum invites Stuart. In the kitchen before they leave, Ben cups Callum’s face in his hand and says, “Are you happy?”, and Callum is almost _too_ happy to reply. Ben taps his chin and Kathy laughs, says, “You two are acting like you just got together, not like you’ve been together two years.”

“We sorta have just got together.” Ben beams. 

Kathy looks confused but Peter says, “Because of prison? Being away from each other.”

“Sure,” Ben says. “That.”

They let the Beales walk a little ahead of them on the stroll to the restaurant. Jay slides over to Ben, Callum and Stuart. He smiles. “Oscar winning performance. Glad you two finally sorted it out. Plan B was just locking you in the parlour together overnight.”

“That’s fine.” Ben looks up at the early evening sky, reveals a small bruise just on the underside of his jaw. “Sure we could make use of an empty coffin.”

“Okay, pretend I never -”

“I remember which of those wood types was the sturdiest.”

“Stop.” Jay covers his ears.

Stuart, not the quickest on the uptake usually, does a double-take. He always commits to a theme or an occasion, is wearing a velvet jacket and a bowtie that looks like he’s going to dinner in a Victorian gentleman’s club, not Ian’s restaurant. “It’s real? I mean, _real_ real?”

“It always was,” Callum replies and feels Ben’s hand in his grip a little tighter. “It’s always been real.”

Stuart looks at Ben. Ben raises his chin. Something works behind Stuart’s eyes, the slow maneuvering of his thoughts as he tries to decide whether he approves or not. He looks at Callum. Callum feels his eyebrows fold, the way they would when he was trying to get Stuart to let him have chocolate for breakfast or to stay up an hour later than he should. Stuart always tried his best, when he was around. He’s always just wanted Callum to have stability (for both of them to have stability).

Stuart says, “Right”, and gives a solid nod of acceptance.

***

It’s probably not going to be easy. There will likely be periods where it’s not easy at all (Ben is still Ben. Callum is still Callum), but “the point”, Callum tells Ben, face turned into his pillow, “is that sometimes the best things aren’t easy. Everyone’s a bit broken. Everyone’s a bit of a prat sometimes. Everyone says the wrong thing or does the wrong thing, the important thing is that you try and put it right, when you can. You come back.”

“Yeah.” Ben trails his fingers up and down Callum’s forearm. “You can come back and ask them to be your fake boyfriend because you’re too scared to ask them to be your real one.”

And you can. You can do that. You can take your morning jog around the Square while your boyfriend catcalls you from in front of the cafe because your legging are apparently _a gift_ , you can have a farewell breakfast for his mother while she has to stand on tiptoe to put her hands on your shoulders and say _welcome to the family, Callum_ and it will make you want to cry, you can invite your boyfriend over to your perfect flat and make him perfect chicken pasta and have him look at you as though you’re perfect too, have him press you into the purple floral of your duvet and he’ll tell you that it’s the ugliest duvet that he’s ever seen but that doesn’t matter because _you’re beautiful, Cal, you don’t even know_ , and in the morning you can make eggs with smiley faces and he will stare at them for a while, and then at you, and he won’t say much but the softness of his smile will say it all. 

At lunchtime two paper bags appear on Callum’s desk. A chicken sandwich and a Chelsea bun. 

The note says _I love you_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm on tumblr at leblonde and twitter at leblonde4, come and say hi!


End file.
